Travel back home

Latvian team made it to Rīga, safe and sound.

Georgian hosting team did it too but they are not safe - SHAURMA party after regular, delicious meals during 15 days in International Scout Centre Rustavi (iscr.ge). 

 Keep check this blog out - soon here will be posted project's fallow up events in Latvia and Georgia.

Day 15 - Celebration of our results

 When you set goals for yourself, it is important that they motivate you: this means making sure that they are important to you, and that there is value in achieving them. Motivation is key to achieving goals!

Culture exchange is important tool to promote social inclusion, equality and the active participation of young people, as well as fight against discrimination and poverty. It is important to develop young people's cultural competences from a lifelong perspective, as it is linked to other key competences of their lives. It is important for us to give them the opportunity to access to the culture because it is connect with self-expression, individual development and self-confidence, innovation and creativity, joy and willingness to accept other cultures, including European cultural heritage.

 Today is the fifteen day since we all come together in Rustavi city in order to learn more about mosaic art and Latvian artist Julijs Straume who spend many years in Georgia. And today is the day when we were writing letters to each other, discovering who were our secret friend, giving promises to meet each other soon again and celebrating Youthpass receiving - a document what recognise learning outcomes of our youth exchange project.

Day 14 - The Big Event!

In the morning we planned an event in which we showed the locals what we learned, went through and what we did the past 2 weeks. The event was consists of 5 parts.

Juljis straume theatre show.

We made a mini theatre about the life of Juljis Straume, about his studies, his work, his private life ;) (not private anymore). The locals really enjoyed it, everyone of the members participated, it was kind of a comedy show.

Erasmus+

One of our leaders, Nini, introduced locals to Erasmus+, about its given opportunities - ESC, training courses, youth exchanges and other youth mobilities. 

Latvian culture

Some of the Latvian girls have set up a video about Latvia. Some technical problems occurred, and we used this moment to sing Latvian folk song. After the technical issues the video resumed. There was also a mini quiz after the video, about Latvia.

Grafitti art

Our guest artist Giorgi Kopadze from Georgia showed us one of the old school street arts, including spray paint to draw a beautiful scene on the paper. People were taking pictures and were amazed at his skills. 

Optional workshop either mosaics or stencil art

In mosaic workshop, people were making mini mosaics, locals learned more about how to make them and what materials to use. In stencil workshop people learned more about stencils and tried to make some art out of famous people portrait stencils using spray paint.

After the good job, we enjoyed Georgian Barbecue (smcvadi) party.

Day 13 - Step fast, step light, step it up!

Last night was really rough but we still were able to for hike to David Gareja

The ride was bumpy and most of the people felt like mashed potatoes, but the view was worth the ride.

Weather was unbelievably hot and a bit windy but we went to see the church which was hidden in the caves and we also saw ancient architecture

After checking the view we went for hike. It was a bit tiring but still we had a lot of fun. Only thing that was a pity is that we weren't able to reach the destination because of Azerbaijan border police. Despite that we had some fun times up there.

After hiking we had lunch in the heat and everyone was trying to get cold water.

Some of us were sharing some creepy facts about spiders and weird bugs and some of us didn't enjoy the facts that much and were shocked a little bit.

We had the bumpy ride back to Rustavi but we were tired and happy.

When we came back in Rustavi we were doing some mosaic stuff and finally the mosaic was on the wall and we could start the finishing work of it.

At the end we can say that the day was full of good vibes and we had so much fun together.!!!!!!

Day 12 - Our magic carpet is moving!

This was a really special day for all of us – our magic carpet was placed on the wall! Well it wasn`t as easy as it looked,  because it was heavy and our boys had to put in some effort, but everything was fine at the end. The mosaic looks great and we all are very happy and  proud of our work!

Also we was happy about opportunity to do some OPEN SPACE workshops again. For example, Giorgi was teaching for Latvian girls a Georgian dances and Latvian long term ESC volunteer Martins was teaching some juggling tricks. It was quite fun!

In the midnight we had a little birthday party! Who was the birthday boy? NIKA! J

Day 11 - Creating art in GYE

As we had to give the time for our beautiful mosaic to dry we tried to spent our day not less creative. This day we spent in our hosting organisation's Georgian Youth for Europe office. Our task was to learn how to make graffiti stencil art and how to easily paint on the walls.

We started with stencil art.  It is easy and the results looks very professional. All you need is to  print black and white image. The image can be what ever you like. This time we used famous people portraits like Marilyn Monroe, Michael Jackson etc. After you have the image all you need to do is to cut out shaded parts after that put the paper on other paper sheet and spry it with paint. Let it dry for a few seconds, take off the paper and you should have amazing graffiti stencil.

The second part of the day we spent like an artists as well - we were painting on the GYE office wall. Before we started to paint there was made a sketch with idea. To make the job easier we projected drawing on the wall and then all we needed to do was trace the lines of the drawing. With both of these techniques good results are guaranteed and there is no borders if you put your creativity in it.

Day 10 - Our mosaic is done!

Today kept working of our "magic carpet" and having OPEN SPACE workshops.

Nana's and Paula were leading Clothes Swap workshop. They introduced us about swapping culture all over the world - swap meet participants exchange their valued but no longer used clothing for clothing they will use.Clothing swaps are considered not only a good way to refill one's wardrobe, but also are considered an act of environmentalism.

After this workshop we learned how to make carpets from old clothes. That was quite fun, exciting and interesting method what we will remember for rest of our lives.

Then there was a time for Martins's Creative text writing workshop.  Participants could write whatever they want. Some of them found out themselves as poets, not kidding. 

While we were finding the poet in our self, the last group finalized our mosaic! That was the happiest and the same time saddest moment of the day. It was fun making mosaics but also tiring too.. Our hard work has made some progress and at the end it was like our baby, we loved it so much. Take a look closer.

 The day finished well. We had movies marathon all night. :) 

Day 9 - The show must go on!

As mosaic was almost done, we spent our 9th day in many different workshops hosted by participants, finishing the mosaic and also getting ready for the Talent night.

First Open Space session started with water aerobics hosted by Eliza and Laura. They showed some moves while everyone in the pool were repeating them, having fun, laughing and after dried off in the sun, patiently waiting for the lunch.

After a good rest and full bellies we continued with workshops and mosaics. This time we had two workshops and one of them was improvisation together with Rati, where people opened up and tried many improvisation methods, just to have good laugh and well spent time. 

Workshops after workshops and this time some people were braiding bracelets in peaceful atmosphere. Participants were proud of their work. 

In the evening finally everyone came together to share their talents, some people were dancing, some singing, some even drawing with two hands at the same time. Also, some people were sharing why do they have this talent or why they wanted to do this. For some it helped to get over anxiety , for others was just a passion and wish to learn something interesting. Later on, we celebrated Nini's birthday at the pool, were Latvians got introduced with Georgian birthday traditions. 

Such a peaceful day, but we did a lot. We are still enjoying our time together.

Day 8 - Kazbegi trip

No mosaic-making or workshops on the eighth day of the project !
Instead the whole group went for a trip that led us to Kazbegi, three hours from Rustavi.

As you all know our project is dedicated to mosaic, so on our way we stopped in Gudauri to visit the biggest mosaic in Georgia : the Russian-Georgian friendship monument, built in 1983.

Then we went on our way to the town of Stepentsminda and climbed the neighboring hill in order to visit the old church sitting on its top, allowing us to enjoy the great panorama.

As the day was all about discovering Georgian nature and culture, we couldn't finish it without a Georgian supra, a traditional feast featuring a never ending stream of food. The restaurant  provided great cooking and entertainment as we were able to witness Georgian folk songs and impressive dances while tasting diverse Georgian dishes and making numerous toasts in the purest Georgian form.

Traditionally, the Tamada (or Toastmaster) is the person in charge of all the toasts during a Georgian supra. There is a traditional way to say toasts in a particular order. The second most important person is called Merikipe and is responsible for serving the wine.

And as the Georgian saying goes, merikipe go to heavens !
Georgians also have their own way of drinking the wine, with two person crossing their arms and emptying their glass before flipping it upside down to show that they finished it and saying special words  meaning literally let your enemies be as empty as this glass.

We are all in love with Georgian culture!

Day 7 - Midterm Evaluation

This day marked the mid point of the project. We where given a task to think about our experience so far.

The project participants continued work on detailed mosaic, meanwhile the morning for the other participants started with OPEN SPACE dancing singing\workshop by Giorgi and Irma . At the same time a Georgian language class took place which was hosted by Nika and Patrick.

Also the participants where given the opportunity to try out free flow dancing in the garden which was hosted by Marika, meanwhile in the conference room youngsters had the opportunity to practice story telling techniques hosted by Minjona.

Before Eliza's birthday celebration participants attended juggling workshop where they learned how to make their own juggling equipment. Parallelly a drawing class was happening which was hosted by Nick and Lola for those who didn't fell like being clowns for the day.

After all the hard work it was time to celebrate Eliza's birthday and the location we chose for this celebration in this hot weather was the pool, to kick off the celebration Lithuanian short term ESC volunteers prepared water games. The rest of the night was spent with loud music and good company.

Day 6 - Mosaic continuation and start of workshops

Today we continued to make our beautiful mosaic and our hard work has paid off.
We have almost finished one half of the Jūlijs Straume carpet's fragment, which has turned out wonderfully  .

Today we started our Open space workshops, so here's a little bit about each of them.
The one of the first workshop was a meditation. Where they had a chance to explore their mind and inner self.

At the same time participants had the chance to join a workshop how I see myself and how the society see's me.
Later on participants could have joined Italian language workshop in which youngsters could have learned basic Italian words and phrases.

Also the girls and boys had a chance to work team building skills and learn how to work in a team.

Everyone loves to play games! So we had a chance to play some board games and to spend quality time together.

Our lives are spent in hyper speed , so it's important to capture the important moments in our lives and one of the best ways how to do it is with photography. That's why in this workshop could learned the proper way how to take a picture.

In the later hours of the day you could had a chance to spend your time in a active or a creative way-like playing basketball or let the imagination run free.