International Youth exchange?!? Hmmm, as for me – it is event what directed to create open minded and free communication atmosphere without any border and stereotypes between young people around the world. Is it right? We will see)
So, during 12 days at the beginning of May in the capital of Moldova – beautiful city Chisinau was held International Youth Exchange "Universal Youth Village", organized by AVI Moldova. The main idea of the project is to connect young people from 5 different countries: Moldova, Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria and Armenia, through culture and creating a space for debate and for the exchange of different experiences and perspectives.
Chisinau met us with the rain, so we felt the character of Moldova’s weather, but the city has such beautiful charm, what gave us inspiration for future days.
During the training were practical activities and discussions concerning the understanding of such concepts as the intercultural learning, culture and how we perceive them. Also we had meeting with local activists what work in different sphere of social life.
A big “thank you” goes to Alexandru Burian for the discussion we had about how does Moldova look abroad from diplomatic point of view, about protocolar aspects and many interesting things that we can only know from someone from inside.
Also we met with Elena Zgardan organizator of TEDxChisinau. During her session we learn how to present our ideas in short, inspirational and useful way. Thanks for the TEDxUYV.)))
During the meeting with journalist of local newspaper Victoria Dodon we talk about the influence of mass media in intercultural dialog.
And a lot of other different and interesting meeting, guests and visited places.
Interesting points of the program were also an open space, during which the participants could lead the training by themselves. Chosen topics were related with volunteering, discrimination, EU pluses and minuses, freelancing and other what help young people in their future development.
One of the most interesting and useful session in intercultural learning is intercultural evening. Here each country takes a lead during the evening and present national games, songs and dances. Also they cooked national dishes for the dinner. So we had a possibility to go deeper in culture of each country and also had a big fun and joy.
A big attraction was visiting winery Cricova, close to Chisinau. There, in 40-th in mining caves was born first wine, and from that time they used as a wine cellar and winery stay the most famous winery in Moldova. Also we visited all conference halls what have different names such as Gagarin, ocean and so on. One of the attractions was a big toilet room. You should visit this place)))
After the winery we went to the place what called Old Orhei. There situated a very beautiful nature: river what goes around the hill and such a green fields. This all give you relax and calm. On the top of the hill situated old church with the cross, what has a very interesting legend about appearance nearest village and himself as well.
This is just a small part of a big amount our common time!!!
I hope that everyone enjoyed this exchange and full of energy for climbing for new, higher, tops.
And some word from Ukrainian participants:
Volodymyr Dyshlevuk, Khmelnytskyy
Universal Youth Village is over. So it’s time to summarize my experience during these days. Nature of Moldova, architecture of Chisinau, and warmth of hearts of all participants and organizers contributed to the success of this project.
Actually it’s difficult to distinguish the most important or the most interesting part of Universal Youth Village. Sessions, trips, culture evenings and intercultural intercommunication were useful and naturally complemented each other. In common life all participants of this project live in different countries, but during these 12 days we interacted without borders between us. I’ve found so many common features, customs, and even traditional dishes!
I’ve got huge amounts of inspiration and productivity; and I’ll surely recommend projects in Moldova for all my active friends!
Yulia Istomina, Rivne
Just few days ago I came back from the amazing youth exchange which took part in Chisinau, Moldova. The aim of the project was to get to know about different youth opportunities, share our culture and promote volunteering work. During the project we had a lot of interesting events, trainings, group activities which were very informative and enjoyable.
When I was going to Moldova I was pretty sure that everything is almost the same there as in Ukraine, but I found a lot of differences. It’s a small country but it has own identifying features, deep culture and style of life. The country is situated in the middle between east and west Europe so you can try there common European food and more traditional one, hear Romanian and Russian in the same time, see a lot of communistic flags and on the next day celebrate the day of Europe. It means this country has a lot of different moods and ideas, ideologies.
I was very glad to learn at least something about current situation in the country,culture and history visiting museums and meet amazing people from other countries.
As for me one of the most fabulous places in Moldova is the winery «Cricova» which reminds some underground city with a lot of barrels and bottles of wine.
I appreciated this great opportunity to visit Moldova and I wish prosperity to this country!
Kryzhanivska Anastasiia, Mykolaiv
Universal Youth Village was an awesome experience for me of exploring Moldova! Incredible and friendly people, intercultural atmosphere and numerous languages - all that surrounded us on the daily basis. The project was very inspiring for me and, I think, for almost all of the participants. I am inclined to implement my new experiences and knowledge in my future project and activities.
Thank you guys for this great time and I want to meet you one day again and find out what new experience you gained. Even time passes UYV will stay in our memory forever!
P.S. Knock-knock)))
Andrii Shevel
by Andrii Shevel and ukranian team of Universal Youth Village.