Open Doors 4 Social Inclusion

Finally, last Sunday 27th November, the final event presenting the results of our EVS projects took place in the MultiKulti social center.

Rural development and Acceptance and tolerance have been the topics of our projects, and we wanted to share with the public our two months experience.

In furtherance of this objective we organised a photo exhibition, a human library and a public debate.

Everybody was invited, at 3 o'clock MultiKulti opened its doors for the public. The photo exhibition was comoposed by photos taken by the kids from the Tabanovce refugee camp and photos showing portraits and initiatives of people living in rural areas. The "huaman books" shared their stories and we had an animated moving debate about migration and about the future of the rural areas in MK.

see you for the next event, we let you with some pictures of the day :)

Weekend in Kavadarci!

Zdravo!

Saturday we took the opportunity to go to Kavadarci (in the south of Macedonia) with our coordinator, he used to live there and we wanted to meet people from rural areas for our project. It was also nice to discover the city and our coordinator's previous employment with the youth organisation, CreACTive.

How is the best way to meet local people? We spent the saturday night in local pubs and had the chance to meet other international volunteers (EVS, Peacecorps...) and local youth workers.

Understanding rural life is not always easy, so on Sunday we went to Marena, a little village near Kavadarci to visit and meet Vancho a local farmer who lives with his mother in a house in the countryside.

Their welcoming was perfect, they showed us the house and the garden, gave us an interview and invited us to eat and drink homemade rakija and ajvar, what more can we ask for :) ?

Under a beautiful blue sky, we walked to find the CreACTive farm, a 500 square meters land run by the association, where local youth and international volunteers work together, and can discover the permaculture techniques, eco-construction principles, composting and other environmental values.

Perhaps in the future the youth from Marena and Kavadarci could bring these ecological techniques to the rest of farmers and habitants in the area, it would be great.

Back in town, we returned to the pub for a meeting with one of the youth involved in the CreACTive projects, he told us about his experiences and we shared a good moment.

Intense weekend if we can say, but we enjoyed it. We love to meet new people and discover new places, and it was very productive for our 'coming soon' photo exhibition.

The trip back from Kavadarci to Kumanovo allowed us to have some rest. Our coordinators version of a direct bus, it wasn't. We stopped for 45 minutes in Skopje! but finally we made it.

Counting the days until the next discovering trip around Macedonia, we think it wont be before the end of our EVS period, which is almost over :(

Hope to see you around!

Artistic workshops in the Staro Nagoričane School

In the framework of our Intercult'rural project we are organising artistic workshops with the 8th grade students from the Staro Nagoričane School.

Every monday we visit the school and propose artistic and creative workshops to the kids. Normally based in the idea of recyclart, we are showing them how different materials can be reused in a creative way giving them a “second life”. 

During this workshops we can also practise with them the concepts learned at wednesday's english lessons! From our point of view, it seems like they enjoy these activities.

This week the children have learnt how to make recycled paper, where the paper is coming from and which are the consequences when we waste it!

Two weeks ago they made halloween decorations (re)using toilet paper rolls and soft cardboard boxes like cereals or cookies boxes, and last week they created recycled boxes from milk and juice tetra-paks :)

See U next monday for more creativity!

English course with children from rural area!

In the framework of our Intercult'rural project we are organising a non-formal English course with the 7th and 8th grade students from the Staro Nagoričane School.

  10 century Church of St. George, Staro Nagoricane

Every Wednesday after the school hours we are receiving the children in the youth center, located next to the school, for one hour of pedagogical games and activities. The objective of these classes is to make the children enjoy learning a foreign language.

After two sessions we can see that the children really appreciate having this unconventional activities. They participate actively and enjoy dicovering new ways to learn :)

On our side we are very satisfied with this activity, it's very nice to share our time with these kids and feel that they are grateful for our presence. Next Wednesday: numbers and colors!

Work in progress...