LIFE+ | Loic outline of the last week of traineeship

This week was my final week. In effect, after almost 2 months of internship, my stay has come to end. All those days were dedicated to both finish ICDET duties and universities requirements.

I finally completed my internship report on monday and submitted it to my university. I started its redaction in July but I had to wait until August to get more information from my university tutor about all the topics, elements I had to cover exactly and some writing recommendations.

Then, I decided to begin to shoot my video about my experience in ICDET as part of the final training session. I tried to reflect about my whole internship here and provide meaningful answers in order to give a complete overview of what was the professional experience here.

I also helped Murat with his video, giving him advice and filming him.

I continue with the completion of the final training session (ICDET OnLanding Training) by filling in all the forms of the sessions and by trying to give my best opinion on the course of the experience.

Loic Perreau

Intern - Project Development Department

LIFE+ | “The Vardim Games” – an experience with children in Svishtov

I went to Svishtov to have a direct experience with children. I arrived in Vardim – a village in Svishtov Municipality - in the night. There were different interns of the Institute Perspectives that welcomed me warmly. The day after I moved with them in order to clean up the theatre of the village.

There – on the premises above the theatre - I met some little girls that didn’t know English language at all. They were preparing a show with their teacher; that invited me to join the dance. It was a beautiful moment: dance, or more in general art, has the power to unite different cultures characterized by different languages. Art is a very important form of communication for a first approach between cultures.

In the afternoon me and other interns moved to the area next to the theatre to stay with local boys that usually play and spend their summer there. Firstly, we played cards, practiced English language, especially numbers. Later, I proposed my activity to the girls of the group: it was a crossword puzzle about the vocabulary of the house to fix new words. At the end we talked a bit and we got to know each other better.

In the afternoon me and other interns moved to the area next to the theatre to stay with local boys that usually play and spend their summer there. Firstly, we played cards, practiced English language, especially numbers.

Later, I proposed my activity to the girls of the group: it was a crossword puzzle about the vocabulary of the house to fix new words. At the end we talked a bit and we got to know each other better.

For me this first direct experience with children in Vardim has been fundamental to get a first idea about the situation of young people in Bulgaria. I liked the group of guys with whom I got in touch: it seemed like a united group, definitely it would be very useful to these guys, organizing some activities to make them spend good in Vardim during the summer.

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Giulia Ciccarelli, intern@ICDET

LIFE+ | The Greek Youth Exchange “Prop@genda”

The Youth Exchange project titled “Prop@genda” took place in the beautiful touristic village of Arnaia, Khalkidhiki, Greece. From the second until the thirteenth of August five participants from six countries (Italy, Greece, Slovenia, Croatia and Bulgaria) took part in activities of non-formal education and artistic workshops that addressed topics of the existent political propaganda in social networks (processing and analysis of such messages), strengthened the European identity of young people, broke any prejudices and stereotypes and created an intercultural dialogue on the pathogenesis of propaganda in different countries of the European Union.

After the first two days of ice breaking activities where we got to know each other better, we had a guest called Ana who was a well establish journalist and she thought us what propaganda is, its history, depiction of art and how to recognize it. In addition we were taught the notion of fake news, what their existence means in social media, and how it can determine whole voting outcomes due to rapid propagation. She was with us for four days and we did some fun and different activities like debates on social media, sketches, an outdoor treasure hunting in which we got to see and learn more about Arnaia and its history and we also did some more chill games. One favorite activity of mine was when we were split into 5 different groups and had full access to the beautiful stage in the educational center we were accommodated in.

We had the task of recreating a news broadcast and each team had a director, an editor, journalists, newscaster and a guest commentator. On our free day we went to the beach on a island close to Stratoni and we went there by a boat, we stayed there for almost the whole day and we could swim to the others islands that were near us.

Finally, the last day came. That day we presented our final task which was to make a video about raising awareness against propaganda. After that we played a goodbye game where everyone got to write a note to the others from the group and give them something to remember. I don’t know if the others cried but I most certainly did. Afterwards we just spent all the time we had left together creating memories we wont ever forget.

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by Ognyan Gabrovski