Project “One World – Our World!” takes place in Estonia from 20th to 29th of August 2010 on the island of Saaremaa and brings together 32 young people from Estonia, Slovenia, Greece, Italy, Bulgaria and Latvia. The main aim of the project is to discuss topics related to world education and global awareness.
is was the day we left Kuressaare... I think this magical and calm place will remain in our hearts forever...
The bell was ringing at 5 in the morning... Taking our bags and going to station to take the bus to Tallin. The journey takes 4 hours...
We used the time on the bus to sleep ;) Everybody were very tired of 7 days Kuressaareing!!!
Arrived in Tallin at about 11.30 we went to the new hostel were we accomodate for the last 2 days.
After Lunch it was time to go to Solaris Center, a great shopping center were our great Estonian organizers prepared a surprise for us... A photo exhibition of the activities and days spent in Saareema!! Very Nice! We've felt important... :D
Then all the groups were presented on a Stage and we get a gift!! All was very cool... Feeling like a rockstar on stage and everybody was looking... Wooow!!! At the end...
After it was time to discover Tallin... A group visited Tallin Underground and another the highest tower of Tallin where to admire the Skyline. Just try to believe and see the beauty of the landscape... ;)
Finally.....
Pizza for everybody and free time... :))
Great Day... That's just Eeee-stooo-nia, Eeee-stoo-nia.... ;)
Unfortunately the day started earlier than usual as we were meeting an Estonian representative of the European parliament at 9 o’clock. Then event took place in the school next to our hostel. The meetingwas very interesting andhelped us to understand the Estonian position in the EU. Thanks to our Estonian friends we learned new facts about how the EU parliament is working and what is the decision making process.
After that we had to prepare for something unknown for us. They took us on bus trip round the island of Saaremaa. First we went to an eco farm where the owners are producing organic soap.
The owner told us about the new generation of eco business that he and his wife do.
After some of us bought some gift and made a lot of photos we headed for a lake which was actually formed by a meteoroid.
It was an interesting fact that it is almost 20 meters depth. And it was full of fish.
At noon we went to Orissare to have lunch. After that they took us to an amazing place that none of us thought that it could exist at the island of Saaremaa. It was an ostrich farm where we found not only ostriches butalso ponies, emus and believe or not but kangaroos. We spent our time there feeding the ostriches andthe other animals and each of us hold for a while an ostrich egg.
Our next stop was the highest place on the island. The scenery was lovely as we were at the end of the world – in front of us it was only the endless blue sea and the island behind us. The view was breathtaking. At the highest point there was a sun watch where many people put a coin with the hope that one day they will return there.
After that we departed to the southest point of Saaremaa. On our way we stopped to see one of the symbols of the island - three windmills. They were quite fascinating and we explored them the from inside.
We crossed the whole island to reach another symbol of Saaremaa – a lighthouse. Next to it there was a lovely restaurant where we had our dinner.
Our last stop was Triin’s hostel nearby. There we met some local young people. Katrin showed us how wonderful she can play the piano. Then we played some energizers outside but because of the enormous mosquitoes we had to move to the gym. The visit ended with an international basketball match. All participants we winnersJ
Finally at 23 o’clock exhausted we arrived at our lovely town of Kuressare.
It was a really unforgettable day – 26th August 2010!
The fifth day may have been a little(maybe not so little)rainny but this didn t bother us at all since we knew from before that it would be the day with the most free time!! After breakfast,the Italian group created two human knots with their energizer which we fortunately untied..!!After this nice game,we all watched the 5 guy's workshop which may shocked a little in the beginning,but was showing the reality about pollution and other global problems.Lunch at the school cafeteria and after this,a visit to the marvelous episcopal castle which may impress from the exterior but the real impressions are born while watching the historical facts which are presented inside of it.The exhibition of the flora and fauna of the island is a real attraction.The visit at the castle was followed by another visit to something typical at saaremaa.The spa.Whoever took the decision to come probably didn t regreted it since the options for game were so many..Turkish bath,Finnish bath,water cumbs and many other activities with water gave us the opportunity to relax,get wet and feel like small children!Time is passing really quickly here at kuressaare and we had to dinner(thank god marcus drive us back to the hostel cause many shirts are still wet from the strong rain) and get back to our base for the remaining workshop based on the italian theme as well as the diversity night No2 which contained a tasty competition among the esthonian memebers of the group,esthonian dances&songs,as well as sketches and other funny games. Time to go to bed wishing for more days like the one that just passed! Greek KURESSAAREANS
This day started with the review of Profile day around Sareemaa. Every team has made a good job,more about experience @day3 post.
In first part Greek workshop about political, immigration ect.in short - about problems with neighbors. Each group came up with serious arguments, it was kind of aware of different problems and situations in each of participating country.Valuable.
The main point of the day - meeting with the mayor of Kuressaree.Great lady. Goshi admired Kuressaree municipality's great comunication with Youth council, he admired it twice :D in addition everybody admired it in their own language! Kuressaree will have very imaginary, fantastic future. It going to bee COOL to have so COOL neighborhood.
There is a saying - idea comes from doing and it also comes from Latvian workshop :)
In the 2nd day we were standing out the main issues about Global awareness, today we talked and made theater about 5 of them.
The actings were great, so creative. Performances were well-thought-out.
I will introduce you now how we've spent our 3rd day in marvallous Kuresaare!! Our aim for today was to visit villages near Kuressaare and to draw up profiles of local people. So our trip started with taking the bus at Kuressaare's bus station. It was a sunny day. It was really hot in the bus guys... but at the end we reached our destination...
The first persons we've met were a man with three nice children.They were from a local football team. So our interview session started...
After walking in a desert... we've finally met two young women with their children at a playground, where we too, get transformed in children... ;)
We continued our walk and have drawn up a lot of profiles... We've met a lot of people at the end. We did not thought that we had all this success finding people in such a small village.
At the end we also get some original and ecological apples from a woman we met and who kindly had let us visit her windmill...
In conclusion i can say, that it was a great experience because finally we had the occasion to live and to discover real Estonia, and not just as a kind of tourist. We have seen how locals live and discovered their problems and their feelings...
That's just Kuressaaaaaaaaaareeeeee.... Come and visit... You will enjoy nature...
The Slovenian kurassaareing team consists of 5 participants.Živa, Iztok, Klara, Austra and Andrej.
The morning was a little hard on some of the participants because the previous night we were experiencing Kuressaare`s night life. Or as we called it: We were Kurassaaring :)
First we learned how to make anti-stress balls with rice, foil and a balloon. We then played a game with our balls andin the end we got really close. So our brains are working, our bodies are warmed up and we were ready for kuressaareing in Kuressaare.
After a good meal our minds and bodies were completely recovered. It was time to work on our presentation and workshop.After a good brainstorming we wrote down some ideas and drew some pictures for the workshop.First we started with en energizer called the samurai that ended with Kristoss screaming KUUREESSAAREE ! The topic of our presentation was Media education and first we showed a video from the web page www.mediaed.org called Consuming Kids.
Then each group picked out a product that they will have to sell and a target group to sell it to (for instance: old couple who is using internet)
They made a 1-minute commercial for TV and this was realy funny.
In the evening we played a game called diversity night #1. The Estonian hosting group tried to presented the Estonian stereotipes about the other countries who are participating in the exchange. It was dynamic, with food and drink testing, acting and picture recognition. We observed Italians playing football, a greek in a toga, the Slovenian cross skiing,... Everybody was surprised that yoghurt originally comes from Bolgaria, but everybody connected olives to Greece.
Surprisingly we (the Slovenian team) won...maybe it`s related to our bad habit of gossiping. We were rewarded with nice prizes for all our knowledge :)
People with some energy left to experience the traditional sauna party, while others fell asleep exhausted.
Hi, we are the Bulgarian group represented by Goergi Laskov, Nikolay Vasilev, Zhaneta Georgieva, Kristyan Dimov and Georgi Arnaudov and we are very happy to say the first day was very successful and inspiring.We loved it!
We hope that active youth from Saaremaa will help us with our project and that we'll meet lots of interesnig people here.
Sleepy morning:
All the groups started to get to know each other. The morning energizers were pure fun and extremely helpful in order to remember our names.
Kuressaare
The main event of the day was really an Amazing Race - we got the chance to meet local citisens and pretty young people. We told them who we are and YIA programme is. The idea was not only sightseeing, but also to inform youth and most importantly to give them the chance to win a great trip to Brussels. We were devided on international groups and socialized with local people in different languages.
The city sights are awesome - a cool medieval castle,a nice beach, lovely people, many tourists, great architecture, a huge windmill and luckily couple of weddings :D - this is good fortune in Bulgaria.
Yaaammy Food's cool. Nice lodging, Zhaneta loves the bathrooms and the people she meets inside.Only Krisyan need more food,cuz he's still developing :]
Parteeeey
Us Bulgarians liked the party atmosphere mixed with serious work. Smart gave us new phone cards, we got cool T'-shirts and a secret gift from Amor ;P
End of the day and the beginning of the night - bars and discos just for Bulgarians
We are glad to announce that we have new supporters: Bono kohuke - it's Estonian, it's sweet and it's really good! We also got some really good Estonian rye bread from AS Leibur. Let's eat healthy! Finally we got chips and some spices for our barbecue evening in Torgu from Santa Maria! Let's spice it up!
The advance planning visit took place 16th to 18th of July. You can see a brief photo raport here. If you want to know more, you have to read it in Estonian ;)
First we went for a dinner :)
Then we got to know Kuressaare and tried to enter the castle (unsuccessfully unfortunately)
Did some sport activities....
Got to know the local nightlife...
Went for the late night swim (the photo how we went there)
We worked really hard on the programme...
We had a discussion about the practical things...
The meeting in the meeting room :)
We showed how strong can Estonian women be...
Group photo! From the left: Salvo, Katrin, Margus, Triin, Guri, Heleri, Elias, Bojan, George, Getter and Gregor
Global awareness and education are important topics for members of European Parliament - Ivari Padar (http://www.padar.ee/) shows good example and commitment to this topic by joining our discussions in Saaremaa during the project. He will join us probably on 25th August in Kuressaare - so all people interested in this topic are welcome. Follow our blog to get updated information about exact location and time of the meeting.
Well, I see that I'll have to be the first of the groups to write something :)
My name is Bojan and I'm a representative for a Slovenian group, that will join the project on Saaremaa island in August. We are all a part of a "Youth center Kotlovnica" that is located in a town Kamnik, 25 kilimeters north from a capital Ljubljana. We are a group of young energic people and we hope to find some related people from other parts of Europe, to exchange our experiences, learn something new and have fun with new friends.
The world education is a huge subject so there will be a lot of things that we can discuss about. We have choose to present a subject about media education. Each of us is somehow conected with some kind of media so we know few about how to use media in daily life and how to interprete it correctly. We will bring some examples and topics that we can discuss about and of course, you will also take part in our presentation :).
Anyway, that's not the only thing we'll talk about :) The Slovenian evening will give you a picture of our small country. You'll be able to see, hear and try things, that are tipical for our culture. We'll have fun, that's for sure...
Now, let us know something about yourself. We can't wait to start the project.
Two active young people (aged 14-25) from Saaremaa have chance to win a trip to Brussels. This trip is possible thanks to Siiri Oviir (http://www.siirioviir.ee), member of European Parliament (The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe: http://www.alde.eu/ (Estonian Center Party)).
To take part in this draw you (young person from Saaremaa) have to find us during the project and let us know what are the important topics for you in local, national and global level. There will be several chances for this in Kuressaare and also in other places in Saaremaa. Follow our blog to know where can you find us. Project in Saaremaa takes place from 20-27th August. There will be also smaller prizes for all participants.
There will be also another opportunity - an essay competition... so keep yourself updated here or on our facebook page.
Tele 2 has agreed to be our sponsor by providing us 35 Smart cards. This means that all participants can communicate with each other and this makes our exchange much more safe. Nobody can get lost and we can contact eveyone anytime. And the calls between ourselves are for free :)
After successful talks with Estonian Sexual Health Associatoion (ESHA) Getter has reached an agreement that ESHA will provide for us 100 condoms. In return we will distribute some information about their activities. To get more information about ESHA check: http://amor.ee/56401.
So.. to remind you all... sex education is also an important part of world education :)
Im here and its absolutely a d o r a b l e! The weather is so fine, people are warm and coffee is still strong :) Me and Heleri answered some questions about our wonderful project and hopefully next week (one of the biggest Saaremaa's daily newspaper) "Meie Maa" will publish a little article where we announce who, where, when and why are doing it - so stay tuned!
But in the meantime - a lil escape to show how cool are the women from Saaremaa.
My mom caught two porgys, first fishing this year :)
Here is a picture and a list of places what we will visit in 26th august
I: Centre B: The Kaali crater C: Goodkaarma soap farm D: Ostrich farm E: Maasi Fort F: The Panga Coast G: Karujärv ( Bearlake) H: The peninsula of Sõrve
