Dec 10, 2013

Colorir as ferias - grand finale




       Our summer activities, in all of glory, has finished with socks theatre play. We worked with kids on play about two weeks. And kids had been our managers, producers, directors , screenwriters and actors. Kids imagination can achieve everything. Because of that, contributors in our little show were Justin Bieber, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan ..
      And story- line, with which they came out , completely thrilled us. During "Porto one day trip", kids had found a dog. They gave him name - Henry, because he had "moustache" looked a like Henry Dunant´s. When they arrived in Braga, Henry , somehow , ran away. Kids and volunteers were decided to find him. They started asking people did they saw Henry. In they seeking adventure they had  met  Sun fairy on Bom Jesus,  Justin Bieber on swimming pool ,Jackie Chan in school playground. Jackie sent us to Camara Municipal to ask Ana and Christina , girl who teach kids to make tiles , but they were on Roman thermal spring. Story is going on … Guard of Roman thermal spring, ancient Roman soldier had sent kids to “Museum do Biscinos” where which is living with all captured pets .
       Evil witch in , all her evilness , has one weakness. She falls asleep when it's snowing. Thanks to kid imagination, we had snow in Braga during summer. Recipe is to close your eyes and wish snow really hard.  For us was reall one, not made out from the styrofoam. Witch felt asleep, Henry escaped and his footprints showed us where he went. He went to Prado. But in Prado, he met Miguel first aid teacher and volunteer,  and not just him. Jean Claude Van Damme is firefighter, and with his truck we came back to Braga…  Are you following the story? Kid imagination, free afternoon and a bit of sun…. Imagine all of effort to make sock puppet for each character same like they imagine them. And menage to put in story everything what they liked the most from fifthy days of summer activities. And for all of us was easy like game.
There is not end of story.  Till end kids will meet Garfield on the cooking show  and once again Sun fairy. I will not say how story ends. You should see that…







Dec 9, 2013

Comedy or tragedy - a training course



In Gyula, Hungary, between 2-9 November 2013 implemented a 6 days international training course on stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination and how media can by useful tool for antidiscrimination and inclusion, called „Comedy or Tragedy”, supported by European Commission – Youth In Action Programme, organised by Benefit Association for Samuel Tessedik College Students and Student Union of Szent Istvan University.The training course based on principle and practice of non-formal education, taking into account the needs of the participants' motivation and prior experience as the starting point.

The themes of the project was:
As youth workers, youth leaders we work directly with young people and of course, we cannot know all the details as family life, religion, cultural background, etc. of our target group. So several times we don’t want and we can hurt. We can hurt with an innocent joke; we can discriminate with a look, a phrase, an unconscious behaviour. Nowadays, working with immigrants, Roma people, members of different ethnic groups, or only with a young person simple, we cannot know which issue can be really sensitive, as e.g. showing a funny short movie about religion or women can be really discriminative towards someone and we even don’t know about it. We don’t know that we discriminate.
So by our project we aim to make people aware of their subculture, their behaviour towards differences, raise awareness on their stereotypes and prejudices and spotlight when they discriminate others even unconsciously. Foster understanding how media effect their perspectives towards each other, how a joke can be discriminative even without knowing it. Then as next step, turn it upside down, use media as tool against discrimination. Use the popular tools what young people like nowadays for the sake of anti discrimination and even invent projects and build partnership around the topic as antidiscrimination by the tool as media devices.

The overall aim of the training course was:
To train youth workers and youth leaders on using media (jokes, short movies and advertisements) as tools on antidiscrimination. To make them aware of their own cultural background, and how it influences them towards different cultures. To foster understanding the reasons behind their reaction, stereotypes and prejudices, and to recognise discriminations around and by them. To learn usage of new media technology on antidiscrimination with for and by young people they work with.

Learning objectives of the training course were:
-       To raise awareness on culture, cultural diversity and  own cultural identity;
-       To make assessment on stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination in general and self – assessment in personal and professional level in particular ;
-       To improve competences as usage of new modern technologies as tools for antidiscrimination;
-       To be able to prepare, realise and evaluate jokes, short movies and advertisements on antidiscrimination;
To create new partner network among organisations and invent together future projects.