Power to the people

ABCD Innovation Center

“Conflicts everywhere” , Youth Exchange

We arrived in Iasi in July where the group of nice people met us. That warm and international atmosphere and the high school full of friendly people made us fall in love with the city from the very beginning. The program "Conflicts everywhere" combined young individuals from Armenia, Macedonia, Italy, Spain, Lithuania and Romania. The program was aimed to raise the awareness of conflict causing situations and their consequences and introduce some conflict management tools.  However, the greatest aim and challenge for us (the participants) was communication and intercultural experience exchange.

Our trainings were full of interesting subjects and discussions. We learnt a lot about conflicts, their essence, what can cause conflicts and how to deal with them. It gave us opportunity to discuss the issues about conflicts with other people. This sort of critical debate is very useful of developing our grasp and understanding of conflicts. It will also help us develop essential skills for later life. We have practised expressing ourselves, our group skills and preparing and delivering presentations.

We enjoyed the time spent in Iasi. With its narrow streets, amazing buildings and kind residents the city ensured joyful and relaxing atmosphere during the whole program. Iasi was also memorable with its story and the museum of culture. We had a chance to get introduced to old Romanian wedding traditions, national cloths' details and their meanings. What else, we enjoyed short trips and the photography exhibitions on the streets of Iasi. People were always friendly in shops and public spaces and tended to help you every time you needed something. Nobody showed impatience with us if we had any difficulties.    
Firstly, as residents of the host country, Romanian participants demonstrated their culture and traditions with the help of presentation, national dances and of course delicious dishes! Than each country had opportunity to present is culture, cuisine, traditions and history. It was pleasure both being informed about different cultures and tell about yours and see amazed faces.

It were so interesting to meet people  from all parts of the world, share different ideas  and cultures and from them we learned how to see things from a different perspective. Apart from the parties, we really enjoyed the events and conferences that took place during this week.

We will never forget this experience and the friends we made during this week because everyone has left us something and when you have as amazing experience with other people as we did on Erasmus, you will always be connected with them.  

Secondly, together we found out what Youth Participation is and why it is important. And then we did some exercises like cases which helped us to understand the importance of youth participation in different kind of situations.

Last but not the least, besides taking all information we appreciate the experience sharing process as well. We deeply hope that all the presentations that we made are really worthy for all participants. During our presentations we spoke about our country about which many participants heard the first time. We introduced our organization, our core values and besides giving others the information about us we understood our benefits and weaknesses as well.

In the end, we cannot ignore the importance of cultural impression. We got acquainted with different cultures and it had a huge impact on our world perception. It changed the way how we thought about our abilities and we understood that we can more than we do both in the frame of personal and professional abilities.

Now we know how it is important to be part of the world’s big family taking responsibility both for us individually and for our youth in general, giving them a chance to discover their talents and change the world and our future. From then till the end we will be sure that our organization is hope for many youngsters from Armenia and from all other the world.​

Teresa, Ruben, Silva, Arman & Elen