To be volunteer in Romania

Together Macedonia volunteer Emilija Apostolova went to Romania under the project ‘A creative project for my future.” She returned and shared her experience with Together Macedonia.

Emilija Apostolova :

From November 4^thtill Novemb  er 11^th  2017, members of the NGO- Together Macedonia attended on the youth exchange program: A creative project for my future, which was held in Drobeta Turnu Severin in Romania as part of Erasmus+ programme in which participated 38 participants from 7 countries: Romania, Italy, Spain, Greece, Netherlands , Turkey, and Macedonia. One of the main activities of which was given special attention was creativity among young people, the education system and possibilities for career improvement.

Knowledge and innovation are seen as the beating heart of European growth. Little time ago, the European Council stated that European citizens’ potential for creativity and innovation is essential for future growth. Although we are supported to develop creativity and creative skills from the highest level, our local realities demonstrated that the results have not been visible so far, at least not to the desirable extend. Therefore on this exchange program we aimed to improve our skill of creative thinking and find solutions to the following problems:

-Schools do not encourage creative thinking;

-Employers require a lot of creative thinking;

-Young people are less interested in creative thinking, as they associate it with art (music, dance, theatre). 

We also learned that training our creative skills will helps us feel more confident, tune in with our inner drive, understand our unique voice and take active steps to reach our personal and professional goals. We had the opportunity to work on different methods and skills to develop our confidence in implementing creative thinking in our everyday life.

As a part of the program we had a cultural walk around the City of Drobeta Turnu Severin with the help of the local Scout organization who gave us different tasks in order for us to get more familiar with the history of the town.

Our everyday activities included working in groups, developing different ideas, learning the process of creative thinking, workshops etc. On the night time we had the opportunity to show parts of our home countries as a part of the intercultural activities and learn about the other countries that have participated. Learned new words, dances, songs and tried different food.