Category: Wanderlust

REVIEW: BONES AND MURDER

Bones & MurderBones & Murder by Margaret Atwood
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Found this book used for 10lv at Elephant bookstore in Sofia. This was my first real exposure to fiction by Margaret Atwood, and it was enough to make me think that reading longer works from her will be something I’m going to enjoy deeply.

While looking for the real title of the book on Google, I stumbled upon this review which just so happens to portray my feelings for it pretty much exactly. Allow me then to do the unthinkable and use that review’s words instead of mine. Thank you Kelly EasyVegan.

“The stories cover a little bit of everything: fantasy, mystery, science fiction, speculative fiction, feminism, rape culture, gender wars, dating, death – you name it.

Many of the pieces are hit and miss; my favorites are the scifi stories that hinge on an environmental or animal-friendly theme:

– “Cold-Blooded” – An alien race of matriarchal moth people visit planet earth – or as they call it, “The Planet of the Moths,” a nickname owing to the fact that their moth cousins outnumber us by billions – and find humans sorely lacking in both culture and intelligence;

– “My Life As a Bat” – A series of reflections on the narrator’s past life as a bat, including a disturbing (and, as it just so happens, true) anecdote about WWII-era experiments in which bats were made into unwitting suicide bombers;

– “Hardball” – A piece of dystopian speculative fiction in which humans, having decimated their environment, have retreated to live under a giant dome. Since space is limited, the population must be kept in check: for every birth, one person is chosen to die via a lottery. Care to guess what becomes of the remains?

Also enjoyable are those stories which reimagine classic literature: “Gertrude Talks Back” gives voice to Hamlet’s long-suffering mother, and “Unpopular Gals” and “Let Us Now Praise Stupid Women” celebrates those villains and “airheads” without which fairy tales would not exist.

While at times difficult to read, “Liking Men” is another standout; this is the piece that deals with sexual assault, vis à vis a woman’s journey back to coping with – and even loving – men (or rather, one man in particular) again after her rape.

A must for fans of Margaret Atwood!”

But seriously, those eyes on the cover…

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REVIEW: ΜΙΑ ΕΒΔΟΜΑΔΑ ΣΤΟ ΑΕΡΟΔΡΟΜΙΟ

Μία εβδομάδα στο αεροδρόμιοΜία εβδομάδα στο αεροδρόμιο by Alain de Botton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Το Heathrow είπε στον Αλαίν ντε Μποτόν να μείνει μια βδομάδα στο ανακαινισμένο και ανανεωμένο αεροδρόμιο (ή μήπως ήταν καμιά καινούργια πτέρυγα; Βαριέμαι να τσεκάρω) και να γράψει, όπως είναι της μόδας να λένε πλέον και στο Amazon, «μια ειλικρινή κριτική» (“an honest review”). Ο τύπος, όπως συνήθως, όπως έχει κάνει στην Τέχνη του Ταξιδιού και στο Consolations of Philosophy (αυτά του κυρίου έχω διαβάσει) παίρνει πράγματα πεζά και τα αναπτύσσει μέχρι εκεί που δεν πάει, φτάνει στην καρδιά του θέματος. Σε μια απολαυστική πλατωνική στροφή, σαν να αγγίζει τον Κόσμο των Ιδεών έχοντας μόνο στη διάθεση του την Σκιά στον τοίχο της της Σπηλιάς. Πολύ λίγοι άνθρωποι έχουν αυτή την ικανότητα να φτάνουν στο γενικό από το ειδικό τόσο δεξιοτεχνικά χωρίς να αφήνουν από τα μάτια τους τις λεπτομέρειες του συμβάντος ή του θέματος στο οποίο έχουν εστιαστεί.

Δεν συμπαθώ πια τα αεροδρόμια όπως όταν ήμουν μικρός που όνειρο μου ήταν να μένω σε ένα, ακριβώς όπως το Χήθροου πλήρωσε τον κο Ντε Μποτόν να κάνει, όμως ο τελευταίος με τη γραφή του και με τις όμορφες φωτογραφίες του συνεργάτη του που συνοδεύουν το κείμενο με έκανε να σκεφτώ πως όσο ακόμα και το πιο τυπικά άψυχο μέρος όσο ένα αεροδρόμιο χρησιμοποιείται από ανθρώπους, τόσο οι ιστορίες τους, ο πόνος και η χαρά τους θα βρίσκει άλλο ένα κανάλι για να εκφραστεί και το άψυχο θα παραδοθεί στη ζωή. Αναγκαστικά. Και αυτό είναι κάτι το πολύ αισιόδοξο όσο ο κόσμος κάθε μέρα γίνεται όλο και πιο άψυχος, γιατί πολύ απλά το άψυχο με το χρόνο θα σπάσει, σαν το μπετόν μέσα από το οποίο απλά φυτρώνει γρασίδι και φυτά και η ζωή επανέρχεται.

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REVIEW: Η ΤΕΧΝΗ ΤΟΥ ΤΑΞΙΔΙΟΥ

Η τέχνη του ταξιδιούΗ τέχνη του ταξιδιού by Alain de Botton
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Χαρισμένο απ’ τη Βάσω. «Αυτό το βιβλίο ταξιδεύει» μου είπε. «Μου το έδωσαν κι εμένα, δώσ’ το κι εσύ όταν το τελειώσεις». Ακόμα είμαι στο ψάξιμο για τον επόμενο αναγνώστη του.

Το προηγούμενο και πρώτο βιβλίο του κ. Alain de Botton που διάβασα, το Consolations of Philosophy, το απόλαυσα ιδιαίτερα. Και αυτό εδώ είχε τις στιγμές του και τις συνειδητοποιήσεις που θα μείνουν μαζί μου, όπως το γεγονός ότι όταν ταξιδεύουμε, παίρνουμε και τον εαυτό μας μαζί, τις εφήμερες ανησυχίες και το σώμα μας που μπορεί να ασθενίσει, γεγονός που σπάνια φανταζόμαστε εκ των προτέρων και σχεδόν ποτέ δεν θυμόμαστε εκ των υστέρων. Δηλαδή θέλει πολλή αυτογνωσία για να φανταστεί κανείς ότι σ’ ένα προσεχές ειδυλλιακό ταξίδι θα αρρωστήσει, θα έχει υπνηλίες ή καούρες ή ότι θα τσακωθεί με το ταίρι του και εξαιτίας αυτών των εφήμερων ανησυχιών θα χαλαστεί. Μάλιστα, όσο σημαντικά φαντάζουν αυτά κατά τη διάρκεια του ταξιδιού, τόσο πιο σπάνια κανείς τα θυμάται. Μένει η εικόνα σαν ο εαυτός, το υποκείμενο, να έχει εξαφανιστεί. Τις περισσότερες φορές τουλάχιστον.

Μερικά ακόμα highlights: ο Van Gogh και πώς οι πίνακες του έκαναν την Προβηγία άξια επίσκεψης όταν δεν ήταν προηγουμένως· ο John Ruskin και πώς τον 19ο αιώνα, και αφού είχε εφευρεθεί η φωτογραφία, σκίτσαρε και σχεδίαζε όλα τα μέρη που του έκαναν εντύπωση ως τρόπον τεινά εργαλείο απόκτησης της ομορφιάς· ο Xavier de Maistre, το έργο του Voyage autour de ma chambre («Ταξίδι στο δωμάτιο μου») και η σημασία της συνήθειας στο ταξίδι και του να φέρνεις τα προηγούμενα ταξίδια σου όπου πας· και άλλες παρατηρήσεις του συγγραφέα σχετικά με το τι μας κάνει να θέλουμε να δούμε ένα μέρος και τι να πάρουμε από αυτό (αναφέρομαι στο κεφάλαιο για την περιέργεια, τον Alexander von Humboldt και το ταξίδι του de Botton στη Μαδρίτη, όπου δεν ήθελε να δει τίποτα απ’ όσα οι ταξιδιωτικοί οδηγοί λέγανε ότι ήταν σημαντικό).

Παρ’όλ’αυτά, έπρεπε να ανατρέξω στο βιβλίο για να θυμηθώ τα κομμάτια που μου άρεσαν. Μεγάλο μέρος του ήταν κάπως forgettable που λένε και στο χωριό μου και δεν μου έμεινε τόσο όσο το Consolations of Philosophy. Γι’ αυτό και τα τρία αστεράκια.

Θα κλείσω με μια αναφορά στον Γιάννη Ανδρέου, τον μεταφραστή αυτού του βιβλίου από τα αγγλικά στα ελληνικά, ο οποίος έκανε καταπληκτική δουλειά με την Τέχνη του Ταξιδιού, που βάζω στοίχημα δεν ήταν εύκολο να αποδοθεί. Βρήκε τις αυθεντικές παραθέσεις, μετέφρασε όλα τα ονόματα όπως έχουν εμφανιστεί στην ελληνική βιβλιογραφία, και γενικότερα έβγαλε έναν αέρα καλλιέργειας εναρμονισμένη με αυτή του συγγραφέα. Τα συγχαρητήρια μου κε. Ανδρέου.

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REVIEW: ΕΙΣ ΕΛΛΗΝ

Εις ΈλληνΕις Έλλην by Carolos Moraitis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Το Εις Έλλην ήταν το δεύτερο βιβλίο που μου δάνεισε να διαβάσω ο Παύλος Πισσάνος όσο ήμασταν συνάδερφοι στη Β’ Διμοιρία του Γ’ Λόχου της 2016 Α’ ΕΣΣΟ στο 2/39 Σύνταγμα Ευζώνων στο Μεσολόγγι. Το πρώτο ήταν αυτό.

Το θέμα του ήταν η ζωή του Παναγιώτη Ποταγού, ενός Έλληνα ιατρού και εξερευνητή της λεγόμενης βικτωριανής εποχής που ακολούθησε τα χνάρια της πορείας του Μεγάλου Αλεξάνδρου ψάχνοντας να βρει αν και τι έμεινε πίσω, καθώς και έφτασε βαθιά στην Αφρική όταν στην υπόλοιπη Ευρώπη άρχιζε να ξεδιπλώνεται το λεγόμενο Scramble for Africa. Απ’ τις πιο ενδιαφέρουσες πτυχές της ιστορίας του ήταν ότι στη Γαλλία αναγνωρίστηκε και υπέγραψε στο χρυσό βιβλίο των εξερευνήτων (η οποία τζίφρα φιγουράρει στον τίτλο του βιβλίου) ενώ στην Ελλάδα, παρα τις εκκλήσεις της Ελληνικής πρεσβείας στο Παρίσι στο Πανεπιστήμιο να υποστηρίξει τον Ποταγό, πέθανε στην αφάνεια και ξεχασμένος ακόμα και σήμερα, χωρίς να λάβει καμιά αναγνώριση ή χρηματοδότηση από το ελληνικό κράτος για να δημοσιεύσει τις εμπειρίες και τις ανακαλύψεις του, εκτός από το πρώτο βιβλίο του που εξέδωσε κάνοντας ένα μικρό crowdfunding με φίλους και εξέχοντες υποστηρικτές. Το χειρόγραφο του δεύτερου έργου του χάθηκε από τους κληρονόμους του.

Ενώ βρήκα την ιστορία αυτού του ξεχασμένου από την ιστορία Έλληνα ενδιαφέρουσα και μπήκα στο κλίμα της εποχής όταν η Ελλάδα ήταν μια νέα χώρα με πολλές ελπίδες και φιλοδοξίες (και οι κάτοικοι της ακόμα περισσότερο), με χάλασε λίγο το ύφος γραφής του κ. Μωραΐτη. Ήταν περισσότερο σαν μια καταγραφή μιας προφορικής ιστορίας ή θρύλου, ιδιαίτερα όπως αυτό φαινόταν στους διαλόγους οι οποίοι παρατίθονταν σαν η ιστορία να ήταν παραμύθι, παρά σαν ένα «βιωματικό μυθιστόρημα». Οι διάλογοι αλλά και η περιγραφή του οδοιπορικού είχαν εξαπλουστευτεί. Αυτό βέβαια έκανε την ανάγνωση πολύ πιο εύκολη αλλά μερικές φορές σαν να έλειπε η σάλτσα—ή άλλες, σαν να μην υπήρχε τίποτα παρά σάλτσα στην διήγηση.

Παρα του ότι με εκνεύρισαν οι διαρκείς αναφορές στον ελληνικό ιστορικό εξαιρετισμό (πώς ο Ποταγός έψαχνε τα ίχνη της σπουδαιότερης φυλής στον κόσμο—μαντέψτε ποιων) αλλά και οι εξωραϊσμοί της ζωής του πρωταγωνιστή (δεν θυμάμαι να αναφέρθηκε ούτε ένα αρνητικό στοιχείο γι’ αυτόν τον άνθρωπο, κάποιο ψεγάδι ή ιστορία που να τον παρουσιάζε σαν οτιδήποτε εκτός από ξεχασμένο ήρωα), λαμβάνω υπόψην μου ότι ο κύριος έζησε την εποχή του Ρομαντισμού, όπου οι ήρωες μπορούσαν να είναι τέλειοι, τα έθνη να έχουν πεπρωμένα, και οι ιδέες τόσο για τους ήρωες όσο και για τα έθνη μπορούσαν να είναι, και ήταν, αφαιρετικές και απόλυτες.

Τρία αστεράκια αντί για δύο γιατί με έβαλε σε ένα κλίμα εξερεύνησης και ανακάλυψης μιας εποχής τόσο της Ελλάδας όσο και του υπόλοιπου κόσμου που πάντα με ενθουσιάζει, και μάλιστα μέσα από μια συγκεκριμένη ματιά που σπάνια συναντάμε.

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REVIEW: ΛΙ

ΛιΛι by Nikos Kavvadias
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Δώρο απ’ το Λενιώ. Το έφερε στη Βουλγαρία όταν ήρθε με τα υπόλοιπα τα κορίτσια να κάνουμε τον Μινώταυρο. Μην ρωτάτε.

Ξαφνιάστηκα πολύ ευχάριστα με αυτό το βιβλιαράκι. Μέσα σε 50 μικρές σελίδες, με ταξίδεψε σε έναν άλλο κόσμο, μια άλλη εποχή που δεν είναι τόσο μακριά, όμως είναι τόσο μακριά. Οι λέξεις που δεν καταλάβαινα, σχετικά πολλές για το περιγραφικό αλλά και απλό ύφος του κειμένου όμως όπως ήταν αναμενόμενο με το διάσημο ναυτολεξιλόγιο του Καββαδία, με έκαναν να με ρουφήξει το μυστήριο πιο πολύ. Ακριβώς όπως όταν ταξιδεύεις.

Πόσο παλιό είναι το ταξίδι… Πόσο λιγότερα κάνουμε σήμερα από τους ανθρώπους του κάποτε όταν ταξιδεύουμε. Συνεχίζουμε όμως να χρησιμοποιούμε την ίδια λέξη.

Δεν θυμάμαι ποιος ήταν, αλλά κάποιος δεν είπε ότι περισσότερη σημασία απ’ αυτά που λες έχει το τι δεν λες; Νομίζω ότι το διάβασα εδώ. Με έκανε να το σκεφτώ ο Καββαδίας αυτό γερά. Και τελικά μέσα στη μια ώρα (και αν) που μου πήρε να το διαβάσω, με πήγε μέχρι το Χονγκ Κονγκ, γνώρισα κι εγώ τη Λι, πατήσαμε και οι δύο το πόδι για πρώτη φορά στη στεριά, είδα μέσα απ’ τα μάτια του Δράκου.

Σκέφτηκα να του δώσω 4 αστεράκια για το μήκος (δηλαδή ήθελα ΚΙ ΑΛΛΟ!), αλλά θα του δώσω 5 αστεράκια για το μήκος (ΓΙΑΤΙ ΗΘΕΛΑ ΚΙ ΑΛΛΟ!)

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ERASMUS+ AND YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES AND ORGANISATIONS RESOURCE FOR GREEKS AND THE GENERAL PUBLIC

This post is a combination of two fantastic pieces of work: Daphne’s article on Erasmus+ she wrote a few months ago which comprises the bulk of this post, and Giorgi’s collection of Greek organisations that run European Erasmus+ projects that is a bit more comprehensive than the one Daphne put together. You will find that list at the bottom of the article.

 It can be a bit difficult to navigate through the vast, decentralised and chaotic field of European Youth Programs. That and the fact that  lot of it can sound too good to be true sometimes might discourage potential participants. Stick with it: it is true! The European Union’s allocation of funds might certainly be questionable in some areas (let’s not go there at this time, you know exactly what I’m talking about ), but there’s no doubt they’re investing tons of money in education and the future with Erasmus+.

Not all of it finds its way to the right hands, which could be said about all sort of freebie European Union money that’s come our way. However, you could definitely make the case that the same holds true for money as a concept in more general terms. But I digress—sorry, difficult to resist.

These big investments are part of a bigger picture, a plan so devious, its scope so ambitious, its goal so far-removed, it could only ever have been spawned in a bright, sterile meeting room in Brussels, in the incandescent depths of the HQ of the European Commission itself. Their goal, behind all of these lifelong-learning  and informal education bells and whistles, is the creation of nothing less than a common identity among young Europeans, a veritable European identity for the people who will have to deal with this shitstorm of gargantuan proportions heading our way, the true proportions of which we’re just starting to understand. That’s us, by the way.

I can’t tell if it’s working or not yet, or if perhaps creating this identity could be forming a barrier against the millions of non-Europeans that have started once again to enter European societies. But it can work; these programs teach tolerance and coexistence, after all. I do believe identifying as European can also mean accepting as European people who previously were not. It’s not, or at least it shouldn’t be, a limited-membership club. It wasn’t so in the past, and there’s no reason it should be now. That’s not how I look at peoples and nations at least and I’m glad I’m not alone.

Anyway. If we want to pull through this, all of this, as best we can, we need (informally) educated, internationally-oriented, risk-taking, adaptable and sensitive young people with a spirit of co-operation and participation. Erasmus+ programs are incredibly good at inspiring all these qualities in participants,  and more.

Ahem. This was supposed to be “just” a guest post. With this introduction of mine I was certainly planning to be shorter, I leave you to them. I hope this information proves useful to you. In fact, it can be quite life-changing, if you want or can allow it to.

erasmus+

Erasmus+ and youth opportunities resources for Greeks and the general public

This post has been long overdue. Since my first youth exchange in June 2013, I’ve talked with an ever-growing amount of people about what I do abroad, how I managed to find these projects, how it’s possible to do so many of them if I’m always broke as fuck and what exactly do I even get from them.

The last conversation I had was with the guys from the coding course I attended this week, and some of them showed great interest in what I had to say, since I already know a lot about these things. I absolutely despise talking, I get nervous and awkward and am unable to explain things properly, so writing is a much better way to get all this information out there.

So finally, here it is. A resource post with all the info and organisations I know about that have to do with youth mobility. Please, feel free to comment under my post if you are part of/know an organisation that you believe should be included in the list! Of course, I recognize that even my knowledge is quite limited compared to people that are actively involved in Erasmus+ as  part of an organisation.

First things first: What on earth is Erasmus+? (here is a bit more detailed page)

When people hear the word “Erasmus”, they instantly think that it’s all about the student mobility thing. Well, guess what. In short, Erasmus+ is the EU’s new programme for boosting skills and employability through education, training, youth, and sport. Before that there was Youth in Action.

The funding for the whole project is channeled to each country through the National Agencies. Through their pages you can find projects and information in your own language and contact them for inquiries.

So the lists that follow include NGOs that are either Sending (SO), Hosting (HO) or Coordinating (CO) organisations, or even all of the above! As copy-pasted from the programme guide, these mean:

    • Applicant organisation from a Programme Country: in charge of applying for the mobility project, signing and managing the grant agreement and reporting. The applicant can be a consortium coordinator: leading a mobility consortium of partner organisations of the same country aimed at organising any type of student and staff mobility.
    • Sending organisation: in charge of selecting students/staff and sending them abroad. This also includes grant payments (for those in Programme Countries), preparation, monitoring and recognition related to the mobility period.
    • Receiving (Hosting) organisation: in charge of receiving students/staff from abroad and offering them a study/traineeship programme or a programme of training activities, or benefiting from a teaching activity.
    • Intermediary (Coordinating) organisation: this is an organisation active in the labour market or in the fields of education, training and youth work in a Programme Country. It may be a partner in a national mobility consortium, but is not a sending organisation. Its role may be to share and facilitate the administrative procedures of the sending higher education institutions and to better match student profiles with the needs of enterprises in case of traineeships and to jointly prepare participants.

These may all sound kind of (or largely) unclear, so what essentially happens is, you find a SO in your country of residence, you apply for one of the projects they are offering (could be an EVS, or a training, or a youth exchange), you get accepted (or not), and you get to go to the country where that project is taking place. You’re hosted there by the HO. How to explain with clear, precise ELI5 wording what the CO part is still a bit unclear for me as well, so I would appreciate corrections and help here.

Personally, the crown and pride and glory of the Erasmus+ programme is European Voluntary Service, or EVS for short. It’s what I’ll be doing in the Netherlands from September 2nd.

Again, in short, if you are between 17 and 30, have spare time from two weeks up to a year in your hands, want to do something creative with your time, have no money to fund your interests, travel, meet other cultures and a horde of other like-minded people, EVS is for you. I strongly recommend it to people who are fresh out of university or school, have been unemployed for some time or just love travelling and experiencing new things. Or all of these! Important:

You will receive free accommodation, food, insurance and pocket money. The only thing you might have to pay is a small part of your travel costs.

Also important, you can only do EVS once in your life. If it’s a short-term project, you may be eligible to apply for a second EVS, but the time you spend abroad must be in total one year. Consider the possibilities carefully, because not everything is rainbows and unicorns. There are terrible projects out there, and people who just want to eat up the funding money. But don’t be discouraged like this – talk with people, do your research, ask me for recommendations and you’ll have the time of your life.

You can find ALL of the EVS projects here. You can search by country/town of preference and type of the project you want. The themes are extremely diverse. For example, I was a mentor of EVS volunteers who worked in TRAG, including therapeutic riding sessions for disabled people and of volunteers who worked in the offices of Greek Forum of Refugees.

In this European Youth page, you can also find other volunteering opportunities here, but I’ve never really participated in something like this so I can’t be of much help. Here you can find their Facebook page. I like organising things in lists, so I have put every page I’ll mention here in special list on Facebook. Good that it’s kinda worth it for something other than hoarding friends and stalking people.

Here we go then. It’s a clear list of NGOs that help you get involved with all the things I mentioned above!

Greek NGOs and other amazing groups of people:

This is not the best time for me to post this, because the Greek Nation Agency’s funding has been indefinitely suspended since April. You can probably discover the reason if you think about the state of the Greek political scene since the beginning of the year. What the suspension means is that there can be no projects implemented in the country whatsoever – no new EVS volunteers, no trainings, no youth exchanges, etc. The problems started way back of course, I remember the NA having financial difficulties for more than a year. BUT, you can still contact these NGOs to projects outside of the country – which I strongly advise you do. Most or all of these post regularly about new opportunites, be it short- or long-term. Keep in mind that even though I’m writing this in English so it can be accessed by everyone, a lot of the NGOs below have projects and information in Greek only.

You can also find some of these in the EVS database I linked above, if you search them by name.

I’ll start with this one as an honour, because I went to my first youth exchange through them. Everyone, meet

Based in Crete. I went through them to Finland, for a youth exchange called Creative Photography in the Finnish Wilderness, along with Garret and Dimitris. Gotta thank him for this whole business, cause he was the first to discover these things and went through Nuestro Mundo to Olde Vechte in Ommen, the Netherlands for a youth exchange in March 2013. That’s incidentally the organisation I’ll be going to for EVS.

Continuing with the organisation I was (am?) an EVS mentor for.

The Greek branch of Service Civil International. They will be my SO for going to EVS in Olde Vechte. They also organise a lot of workcamps which you can find out about in the page I linked here.

I know a couple of the guys involved here personally, and I love them. 😀

I think just their name is motivating in itself. Don’t be a couch potato.

Self-described as an informal group of ambitious people and filmmakers interested in new media & youth work.

I know their crazy dudette Antonia, who will never forgive me for taking away her tobacco.

You can also participate in workcamps through them.

They organised the last training course I went to, in Skoulikaria, Greece. They’re pretty new but have great aspirations.

I can’t remember how I found out about the rest of the NGOs, but probably through facebook shares or through people I met that knew them. Networking!

(Of course, there’s a lot more, and quite a few that are just Hosting/Receiving NGOs — meaning they can’t send out Greeks but only receive foreigners as EVS volunteers)

Other European organisations:

I will start with my favourite, since I’m going there for EVS in a couple of days. For a whole year! Woo!!

I strongly recommend attending at least one training/project happening in Olde Vechte, because you’ll start seeing your life change before your own eyes. I started with a youth exchange, and the place inspired me so much that I went back for a personal development training. From then on everything fell slowly into place and I decided it would be the best place for me to go to right now. There is an amazing amount of people who are working there, including the EVS volunteers and the trainers that come back several times per year to shake a bunch of young people up with their wise teachings.

OV is part of the Synergy Network, that organises trainings (either open calls or funded by the EU) for personal and professional development.

Right now the Spectrum Synergy project is ongoing.

Continuing in the Synergy business, I’ve also got to know some of the guys involved here. They’re real good! (They also have a wonderful partner page)

Moar Synergy. Their team has some amazing members and I’ve wanted to participate in some action with them for a long time, but I never got the chance. Soon, I hope!

Never had to do anything with these guys but I’m pretty sure they’re awesome too.

Welp, there’s also the Greek one. Starring my favourite mouse on their fb page.

Another NGO that is involved with Synergy and a long-term wish of mine to get involved in. Hungary.

More Balkan stuff, specifically Bulgarian. I went back and forth so many times in 2014 that it will always be in my heart, even though I wasn’t closely involved with any NGO there. Most of the info is in Bulgarian.

  • Balkan Kids| SO, HO (Hey David :D)
  • CVS Bulgaria | Facebook | SO, HO, CO
  • Suddenly I’ve forgotten half of the NGOs I got to know there. Ok. There’s still the EVS database.

Czech. Got to know through Šárka. 🙂

Cyprus! I visited (and was hosted at the volunteer’s places) both of them when I was in Nicosia (thanks to Toni :D) and later got to know Iliana from YEU in a training course in Bulgaria. Small world!!

Ok. This is getting really long, so I’ll now link to some more general resources which post about trainings all over.

First, here are some facebook groups (not my favourite thing because there’s too many posts):

Again, there’s quite a lot more of them, once you get involved they’ll start popping out like daises.

And some more pages and websites that can help you get into things.

Edit 31.08.2015: Panagiotis prompted me to add this one, it seems quite promising and I had been looking for something like it for a long time.

You can basically search for upcoming projects based on where you reside and where and when you want to go.

A network of eight Resource Centres working on European priority areas within the youth field. As part of the European Commission’s Training Strategy, SALTO-YOUTH provides non-formal learning resources for youth workers and youth leaders and organises training and contact-making activities to support organisations and National Agencies within the frame of the European Commission’s Erasmus+ :Youth in Action programme and beyond.

The Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations is an International Non-Governmental Youth Organisation that represents national organisations which promote intercultural education, understanding and peace through voluntary service.

The European Youth Foundation (EYF) provides assistance and funding for youth activities which promote human rights, democracy, tolerance and solidarity.

Facebook:

  1. Hellenic Youth Participation
  2. Youthfully Yours GR
  3. Προγράμματα Aνταλλαγής – Youthnet Hellas!
  4. Elix/ Ελιξ- Προγράμματα Εθελοντικής Εργασίας
  5. Youth in Advancement 18plus.gr
  6. Citizens in Action
  7. Think Positive
  8. United Societies of Balkans
  9. System & G – Greece
  10. You in Europe
  11. SCI Hellas
  12. Erasmus+ Youth Greece
  13. Εrasmusplusyouth
  14. Εν Γνώσει
  15. Horizonsforyouth
  16. Greece in Action
  17. KANE Κοινωνική Ανάπτυξη Νέων / Social Youth Development
  18. UNESCO Youth Club of Thessaloniki
  19. E.A.S.T.
  20. Be pART
  21. Breaking The Borders
  22. Association of Intercultural Communities
  23. Youth for Exchange and Understanding
  24. interaliaproject
  25. Break the Couch

 

Sites:

  1. Ευρωπαϊκή Εθελοντική Υπηρεσία
  2. http://erasmusnow.com/
  3. Eurodyssey
  4. The SALTO-YOUTH Resource Centres provide
  5. Nuestro Mundo

 

General programs and sites:

  1. http://joinyouth.com/
  2. http://youth-portal.com/
  3. http://goabrod.blogspot.gr/
  4. http://www.mladiinfo.eu/

GROW CREATIVE YOUTH EXCHANGE 6TH-17TH OCTOBER, RIJEKA, CROATIA

Once again, I feel so relieved someone else did the more descriptive, general write-up for me. *dons sunglasses, throws self in hammock set up between chestnut trees*

It happened! Grow Creative in Rijeka

The youth exchange we were preparing and waiting so much took place in Rijeka on 6-17 October. 30 young curious and talented people from Croatia, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Greece, and Spain came to learn, act and have fun. And they did it!

The aim of Grow Creative is to empower young people to be successful and creative, to find their dream jobs. The participants went deep inside to discover their inspirations and values, and they flew high to share their dreams and plans for the future. They worked hard morning through evening to enhance their problem-solving and communication skills, and even tried themselves as entrepreneurs.

Many things were happening every day. We learned some NLP and coaching tools, and had many interactive presentations and discussions.We played different roles,and had new exercises and energizers every day.Many activities were created and led by the participants. Thank you for sharing your experiences with us!

We used many different ways of communication, mingling and cooperation. Our mutual understanding and unity reached ones of its highest peaks during the cultural evening. Each country presented the best of its culture: artistic performances, traditional dances, national habits,and delicious cuisine. And we saw creativity boosting! Altogether it made the event so intense, exciting and remarkable.

All these 11 days Dharma Hostel was our home, sweet home. It provided us with beautiful Adriatic Sea view, comfortable rooms, vegetarian food, yoga classes in the morning, and very friendly and hospitable staff.
We also went out to explore Rijeka, and it was a lot of fun with some unexpected discoveries and surprises.
Sometimes the things were not easy, and we needed support of each other. Sometimes we went out of our comfort zones, but always came back to our Cozy Area. And eventually team work proved that everything is possible, we got impressive results and had a great time together!

Thank you to all the participants for making this exchange so special and inspirational. We hope to see you again and wish you beautiful adventures ahead.

And here we go, ready to take off with new projects and ideas!

My remarks:

Everybody set challenges for themselves during the training. Mine was “move and function from love, not fear”, inspired/taken/stolen from the phenomenal book I read a few months ago already, Conversations With God

All in all, I found this exchange very motivating and inspirational. I had  the distinct feeling it was just what I needed, the right thing at the right moment together with the right people etc. The Greek team, the Spanish guys, the Czechs, the Croatians and the EVSers working with them, българите…There was a lot of synergy in the group and we bonded faster and stronger than I expected—though this feeling is a typical high you get during  youth exchanges and one that unfortunately doesn’t last that long once they’re over. I’m still trying to figure out whether that feeling is artificial compared to “normal” intimacy with people. Maybe it’s just our society and way of life that have taken so much out of plain old human connection.

Anyway, I felt great clarity when I was envisioning my future and describing my present situation, my place in life and where I wanted to be. I felt amazingly relaxed letting out the words but not caring whether they would come to pass, or even if anybody would understand; I realised that whatever happens will be right, if only I focus on what I want my life’s meaning to be, so to myself as to the people I meet on the way. No, scratch that actually. No matter what you do, no matter what happens, everything will be alright. Including, I don’t know, the destruction of the Earth itself.

Writing these lines brought Man’s Search for Meaning to mind…

One such moment of touching core meaning was was when I gave a half-hour workshop on the Enneagram to the group and it went super smoothly. Almost nobody had heard of it before, and it resonated with a greater part of the group than I had expected. It felt right and in fact I received positive reinforcement in everything I attempted to do differently, as related to coaching (a big point of focus of Grow Creative in general) and working with people.

The feedback I get during exchanges is so different from what I’m used to hearing in “everyday life” that I must admit I find it addictive, scary and thought-provoking in equal degrees. Many people in Grow Creative found me and what I had to bring to the team—the Enneagram, the games, my honest sharing, my attempts to be an active listener and competent talker—“inspiring.” I was just making a point to be moving from love, not fear. And it made everything so much easier, so much prettier. Opening up and, as cliché as it sounds, letting go—that is, letting go of who you want others to think you are—felt good in a very pure sense.

That said, I can’t recall the last time anybody in Greece called me inspiring. Apparently, I project quite different personalities to the people I’ve known for a long time, who have certain expectations of me, and to those I’ve just met. Quite contrary to what used to be the case, I’ve become much more eager to meet and get to know new people, and find it increasingly harder keeping up with older friends, acquaintances, relatives… I like to think it’s because of expectations and that it’s impossible to make everyone happy, in other words, “best just to avoid having to deal with expectations entirely”... But could it be another sign of my underlying need for infinite novelty? Well, in Grow Creative, for the first time in a long while, I felt as if I took the first step in getting over that too. But maybe not, either, and it’s not very important, really.

A big thanks to the Life Potential team who scored big with their first exchange.

In the vain of Kwa Nhingirikiri (totally had to double-take on that), Timing, Happy…

BLOOD SPACE METASTASIS

Last night was the now famous supermoon eclipse. I woke up early to go outside and have a look. Quickly, like a lot of Greeks, my enthusiasm was quenched because of the cloudy sky. These September nights have been warm but cloudy and rainy. Switching from a Mediterranean climate to a tropical one? Check. At least it’s better than turning into Sahara, I suppose.

133117755652744

To my credit, I didn’t immediately give up, either. I sat there for 40 minutes or so, reading and underlining my morning pages from earlier in 2015. Alas, the clouds won that hopeless staring contest. I went back to bed and thought it would be a good idea taking advantage of waking up that early to take a shot at entering a WILD. Instead, I was welcomed with a bout of the worst sleep paralysis I can recall: when my body fell asleep, my consciousness didn’t, and I had hallucinations of a person walking in the apartment, into my room and around my bed. It was pitch black, so the hallucination was consistent, in that I couldn’t see him/her/it, only hear the footsteps. I had to endure this while unable to move any part of my body apart from my eyelids and their contents. All the while, the blood moon was setting behind the cloud cover. During sleep paralysis, no-one can hear you scream. You can’t scream….

Take a deep breath.

It could have been me who took this .gif. It’s a consoling thought.

Nevertheless, for all its photogenic glory, it has to be said that September 28th 2015 will not be remembered for its supermoon eclipse. It will go down as a small footnote in history that on the day NASA announced they found flowing water on Mars there had been a supermoon lunar eclipse less than twelve hours prior.  It is a veritable milestone that would have me leaping for joy—if I was any proper kind of science/sci-fi/astronomy nerd to begin with. Instead, all I can think of, perhaps especially after almost half a year of constantly dealing with water as a human right and the current global state of affairs, is how we should be sorting out our shit on Earth first before starting to even think about colonizing other worlds.

Don’t get me wrong, I too get terribly annoyed when other people generally show this kind of flamboyant lack of interest in the vastness of the Universe and the amazing advances in our apparent knowledge of the world. It’s usually such people who shun video games because they’re capitalist toys and refuse to see how they can work wonderfully to promote education or cultural awareness. Similarly, they show open contempt for science fiction as a genre, no matter how eye-opening, poetic or important it might be. They’re not interested to know that Dune, for example, was one of the first books bar none to speak about ecology and sustainability when it was published 50 years ago. No, it’s science fiction. “We have real problems on Earth. Sci-fi is for comfortable middle-class white nerds”, they say, or seem to imply. My very own father told me off when I tried to explain to him the virtues of The Dispossessed. As I was saying, under normal circumstances I get borderline offended by these reactions; at this very moment, I can sort of see where they’re coming from.

What if Arrakis, Dune, Desert Planet is Mars in the distant future?
What if Arrakis, Dune, Desert Planet is Mars in the distant future?

A lot of the excitement surrounding the discovery of flowing water on Mars has to do with the fantasy of modernity, the wet dream of boundless progress, the Promethean achievement of humankind founding an extraterrestrial colony. While science fiction wouldn’t have you believe it, especially with the likes of Interstellar framing the popular imagination, we’re far, far from thinking about humanity as a separate entity from our home planet. There’s no reason to believe that without Earth we could survive for any length of time. I don’t think we would want to, either. But we’re obviously not taking care of our planet as one would take care of their home. In fact, we couldn’t do much worse if we were actively trying to destroy it.

Colonising Mars as our last hope for survival after we’ve made Earth unfit for humans and broad swaths of other types of life, too, is not something I’m going to support. We’ve been making our bed, we should be honourable enough to sleep in it too—once and for all, if it comes to that. If we can’t live as part of the great ecosystem, we don’t deserve to survive. I would use the cancer analogy, namely that us out-surviving the Earth would be like cancer cells out-surviving the cancer patient who died because of them, but on second thought the analogy wouldn’t be exactly right, as it’s not really possible to kill the Earth the same way a human can die of cancer. Still, if not kill it, we just might see our Earth wither away into a wasteland where it will take many thousands or millions of years for new forms of life to take advantage of the mess we’ll have left behind—if we don’t end up like Venus, that is.

Venus_globe
Terra, 2335 AD

I know you might say that some ideas born out of past science fiction turned out to be possible. After all, “we” (i.e. well-funded Americans) did go to the Moon (don’t take my word for it though) and that was just four years after Dune was released and a single year after 2001: A Space Odyssey did. Back then, people were saying that we’d definitely have at least a couple of bases up there by the turn of the millennium. But  here we are, the turn of the millennium’s already fifteen years behind us and I’m not seeing any bright lights up there. So what happened? Could it be that there are some hard limits to our malignant growth? I would argue that yes, and plenty of them, as much as we like to pretend they don’t matter.

Next to all this, I’m secretly hoping for disclosure of long-standing alien contact, that moment that will change everything, like Naomi Klein says, only for real. Maybe in that scenario we will be taught how to build a viable multi-planetary civilization together with them and cross the stars that way. But on our own? Now? We’d probably destroy the colony the moment they were unable to pay off their debts to Earth, or make them privatise their water company, like many people were quick to joke about with today’s discovery on Twitter and Facebook.

Riding Light from Alphonse Swinehart on Vimeo.

But all said and done, I see videos like the one above, where you get to do a to-scale virtual tour of our solar system at the speed of light, and go right back to marvelling at how far we’ve come. Suddenly it hits me how difficult, how amazing it is sending missions to moist rocks or giant chewy-cored balloons so far away from here, redefining what is possible.

What vocabulary would a space-faring civilization like in Stellaris develop to describe the vastness of space?

I want this game very bad. Very very bad.