Below you may find a full detailed report, composed by the group leader, about the youth exchange “Free(lance) yourself” that took place during 22/11/22-30/12/22 at Goring and Streatley/ UK including Greece, UK, Croatia, Romania, Turkey, Czech Republic and Latvia.
First of all, let me introduce you to the participants from the Greek team:
Julia Boutziona (team leader)
Professional freelancer linguist and youth worker.
Irini Rizou (participant)
Greek literature student and youth worker.
Melina Valsamidou (participant)
Chemistry graduate and youth worker.
Daniel Nicolau (participant)
International tourism graduate and youth worker
Vasiliki Papagianni (participant)
Pharmacy student and youth worker.
The above-mentioned participants formed the Greek mission to this Youth Exchange, with the task of participating actively and presenting 3 workshops regarding self-employment and freelancing future through the duration of this training.
A few words on our representative’s side about this experience:
Daniel: The project has been a true inspiration for me and for what I want to do in the future, giving me tools and skills by realizing my own workshops and developing and brainstorming activities with the other participants. I learned more about entrepreneurship and was introduced to the topic of how to get into it. In conclusion, I got ideas and plans for my work life after I finish my studies and define a plan for my career.
Vasiliki: Such an experience combining education, social poetry, exchange of knowledge and perceptions can only have positive and negative aspects. Starting with the less, I will not hide that in the first days I had doubts about the program, I did not like the fact that we (the participants) had to organize almost all the workshops. We were not given proper guidance from the beginning; we did not seek it afterwards and in my opinion the result was not satisfactory. However, the organizers were willing, cooperative and experienced. I was surprised that in the rooms we were not with people from our country, with whom we were anyway united by the language and the evaluation meetings we had at the end of each day, but from other countries. This brought us closer together, it was a pleasant occasion for discussion. The village we stayed in was very beautiful, quiet and picturesque, ideal for daily walks by the river. This project was an occasion to create friendships with young people from other European countries, to make sweet memories and to get to know myself better. Thank you very much for this opportunity!
Irene: The feelings about this program are many, some very beautiful and others less beautiful. The whole program is a special experience for all of us, I think. I learned many different things about a subject that while I was interested in it, I never sat down to look for it. We covered a range of topics with the method that I first came in contact with at this age, the method of informal education. A method that as a teacher I will use with great joy and longing. Of course, in my opinion only informal education is not enough, I would prefer a formality in all this character. Interestingly enough we covered the subjects ourselves, of course there was an anxiety but constructive anxiety, to cover them all as best we could and I think we achieved that successfully.
What this project has achieved is actually to give me an idea of the freelance profession and I want to get into that world. I am trying more and more to develop my skills from a young age so that I am more and more prepared and capable. I am sure that as a job it has a different character and unfortunately in many societies it is not very widespread and accepted. Nevertheless, I am here to pursue it and to try harder and harder to achieve my goals and the new dreams I have acquired thanks to this project.
Julia: My experience was very constructive for my freelance career. This training made me reconsider a few aspects of my profession and how much I could improve my work life as a freelance. Additionally, although it was stressful at some point, having to prepare and present all these workshops, I gained more confidence speaking in front of an audience and more public speaking tricks. Last but not least, I would like to thank the coordinators for their collaboration, since they provided us most of the things we asked for.
Melina: By participating in the youth exchange "Freelance Yourself" I took part in a group effort of interactive activities, including games and non-formal learning methods aimed at strengthening the profession of a Freelancer, the skills of the participants, but also promoting elements of our culture. We shared our interests with the participants and presented creative ways of informing each other.
I particularly stood out, the activities that included short spontaneous role play and mimicry activities, because they helped me to think out of the box.