Spanish Team Testimonial
We are motivated now to do business caring about people and environment and to encourage others to take advantage of opportunities like this one because there are experiences that change people and people who will change your experience.
Thank YOU!”
Polish Team Testimonial
Romanian Team Testimonials
“It was my first Youth Exchange. I can’t wait to repeat it. I left with a great baggage of Information regarding entrepreneurship and recycling. Who would have thought that this two would go together so well. I also saw how different we are as European citizens and how different but in the same time beautiful are all the cultures. “ Adrian
“It was an extremely nice experience. I’ve learned a lot of things and I saw new places. I’ve met different cultures and different people with different personalities, but this thing wasn’t a barrier in making new friends. I never knew that you can make so many things out of recycling stuff and it was very nice to see that some people are even good in making nice things out of “nothing”. To sum up: nice experience, nice people, nice memories. Thanks, P.O.D. Association” Adina
“It was the first time that I participate in a youth exchange. The lived experiences from the project help me to know myself better, being put in new situations and contexts, outside of my comfort zone. I developed my English skills.
I’ve met new cultures, I saw different types of thinking and learned a few things about the other participant country`s habits.” Ana
“In the first place, I would like to thank the organizers for giving me the opportunity to get for the first, and perhaps the last time, in Tenerife. The weather was great, but I didn’t have too much time to enjoy the sun because during the time when sun was up we had to participate at the activities. Getting to the activities, I would like to say that they were wonderful, but weird in the same time, because the cultures and styles were different. Anyhow, we were all human there so we managed to get to know and understand each other.
From my point of view, we, the Romanians, have a more developed sense of humor, which helped us integrate a bit better. I would like to congratulate the organizers for having so much patience with me, for organizing such an international project and for doing it good.
Lots of kisses to Adelina and I hope there will be organized more projects like these to give the opportunity to other persons to visit other countries and cultures and to learn something new and interesting.“ Lorin
“I had a lot of fun. I was very pleased to represent my country in a Youth Exchange. I would love to repeat this. I came back with a lot of information regarding business, information that I even started to apply. Very nice places and great organization from all points of view.” Ciprian
“Unforgettable experience. I gain a lot of knowledge regarding the business domain and a nice thing was the fact that every participant had the opportunity to contribute to the information given. I saw beautiful places and I met a lot of nice people. Thank you for everything” Teona
Czech Participants Testimonials
¨Unexpected adventure, intensive intercultural learning, shining sun, blue sea and practice of cooperation – we experienced this and much more during one week of youth exchange, which was called „Business Creativity“.
As you can guess from the name, we had a chance to develop our creativity and enlarge our business skills and abilities related to the topic of entrepreneurship. On top of that each of national team was responsible to prepare part of the programme for the other participants so we got involved into preparation even before the beginning of the activity and we discussed all the details about our sessions. All the sessions of the project had nice flow and we truly enjoyed them.
There was Czech, Romanian, Polish, Bulgarian, Greek and Spanish team, all of us ready to share our experiences with entrepreneurship in our countries and all of us excited to learn new things. And we did learn – not only because of topic of our Exchange, but also about life in other countries and different approaches to life.
Some of us got more tolerant, some us are more aware what to expect when you meet another culture, some of us are more self-confident when speaking in foreign language, most of us found a friends for lifetime. One think is sure. We will never forget this life-changing experience.
Thank you P.O.D. for organizing this opportunity for us and big thanks to our sending organizations to make us ready for this!¨ Lenka R.
¨This project was focused on increasing of entrepreneurship awareness among youths. I think that this project greatly fulfill this goal. We got familiar with basic needed to start business. We learned something new about creativity and techniques how to be creative. Especially I liked Polish performance about negative brainstorming, which was new for me. In second half of project, we were acquainted with up-cycling of trash and how raise a value of garbage. There I was truly surprised how this model is liveable for small sellers, which are preparing souvenir from trash. Moreover, I had possibility to spoke with Bulgarian entrepreneur, which showed and explained to me her business model.
At the end of course we tried to prepare a public event to show to Spanish youngsters possibilities for starting entrepreneurship, to show where to find information about Erasmus+. But here I was disappointed, because location for public event was not chosen well. It should be on Friday near some high school or university. I really appreciate possibility to participate in this project. I had opportunity make new friends, to establish new connection which could be valuable in future. I made good connection to polish group, so hopefully I will visit them very soon. A proof that this connection is working, I experienced few days ago. I helped to polish guy to find some start-ups and entrepreneurs in Czech for his project.¨ Libor
¨I really enjoyed getting to know people from other cultures and sharing and exchanging ideas and experience with them. I appreciated that the project included some short trips around the island so that we could explore the surroundings a bit. The project included more less useful topics so I learnt some new things and methods. Even though I think that some of the sessions could be improved but as I found out during the project every person there had different expectations so it is very difficult to make it as the right fit for everyone. I am very grateful for the opportunity to participate in the project as I could experience how it is to run some of the sessions and meet very interesting people and new friends.¨ Ivana
We did it!
On 29th December 2014 Casa Grande Surf Hostel got full again with youngsters from Spain, Poland, Romania, Czech Republic, Bulgaria and Greece. The reason? Business Creativity Youth Exchange.
The beautiful small city El Médano hosted us again for 9 days, full of new experiences, knowledge and non-formal education. After everybody arrived and got used to the beach and the surroundings we had to get used to each other so we made a short introduction at the Welcome Party.
Each country was in charge to prepare and facilitate some of the sessions, so we got to know each other a bit more with the Spanish team.
We also tried to make each night a pleasant one with diverse activities like: Games Night (including board games), Treasure Hunt,
Intercultural Night, Story Telling Night (we have seen some great interpretations or adaptations of national stories, with props, costumes, make-up and all).
The Greek group tried to make us a more connected group using some teambuilding and cooperation games in a funny and competitive way.
The Polish guys put our imagination to work. They’ve offered us new techniques to improve our creativity and to find creative solutions for our situations. These methods – Forced Analogy Technique, 6 Thinking Hats or Reverse Brainstorming – are great to use for a start-up business or to refresh your work.
The Czechs took the business(wo)men out of us… with candies.
We’ve learned about business, how a business plan looks like and what it needs to contain; we found ideas, thought of businesses and tried to get investment in a simulation of Dragons’ Den… and they were pretty demanding and greedy.
As the topics of the exchange were business and up-cycling, for the second one we had as facilitator the Bulgarian team. They are experienced in the field, one of their members has a business, creating jewelry or decorating objects out of recycled materials, for years now. So we’ve learned how to use napkins, PETs, cans, cork, egg shells to create new things that maybe we have never thought of. Also, we’ve learned how to pack them to look more sellable.
With the Romanian group we’ve planned our public event with some entertaining activities on the beach, with chasing the youngsters of El Médano to find out what they know about entrepreneurship and with extra tasks to check our persuasive skills. We have spread into working teams and created informative materials, promoted the event, made a flashmob or created recycled objects – an intensive work for not so long time.
And we went to Puerto de la Cruz to inform people about entrepreneurship and how they can start their own businesses. The weather that day was moody like a teenager: sunny, rain, sunny, rain… so we had a just a short time visiting the beautiful city center of Puerto de la Cruz.
That was not our only visit on the island, we also had the chance to see El Teide National Park and to find out from our guide more of how Tenerife and all the Canary Islands were created, the volcanoes’ activity, climate and many other useful information. We have ended the day with a (shopping) visit of Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
On 7th December the Hostel got silent again and one by one we all got back to our lives back home.
But we had a great time together, for sure we met interesting people and we’ve made new friends, so we are looking forward to see them again someday, more wise, more full of life experience, but with the same young souls.
Un abrazo fuerte,
P.O.D. Association Team
P. S. More pictures from the project you can find on our Facebook Page
Scissors, Paper… Silicone
Time is ticking away and soon we’ll meet all the participants for the youth exchange.
We are really eager to know them, and till then we’re trying to get things in order, to buy the stuff we need for the sessions and so on… Well, regarding the things we have to buy, we got a bit lost in the multitude of colorful and beautiful things and couldn’t stop with just one item as you can see in the image below.
But the shopping didn’t stop here, as we want happy and creative participants all time, so we had to get some boardgames to keep the good atmosphere.
Pretty soon we’ll show you the materials for the up-cycling workshops too. So get ready to create some Christmas magic.
P.O.D. Team
Preparation Started for the Youth Exchange
The Spanish National Agency gave us the good news that the Youth Exchange Business Creativity will receive funding through the Erasmus+ Programme.
With this great news we started working on the project and we already found the perfect location for the activities planned. During the 29th of November and 7th of December of 2014 we will be in El Médano, Granadilla de Abona, Tenerife, Spain.
We are working now on the welcome pack for the participants so they can also start their trip preparation.
More information to come…