You ever wondered what a change maker is?
Our main goals include contribution to local society and inclusion of people with fewer opportunities.
Until now, an event like this one was never held in Timișoara.
Thoughtsabout a more active and united community brought about tone hundred people together, from all over the world.
How will this action be implemented?
In five abandoned points of the city, volunteers are working together on reconstructing and rehabilititating them as youth centres.
Nowadays, when young people want to step up, these spaces can offer them the propper tools to do so.
After the centres are operational, they will hold activities like movies, theatre, story telling and many others.
Counting on the support and donations of the local community, we will be able to make some dreams come true.
Tomake this happen, the volunteers will be in Timișoara for a period of fourty days, working hard on achieving their goals.
Inthe end, the youth for youth methoology will allow us to give the buildings back to the community and raise awareness to the importance of volunteering.
Ourfirst week passed by quite quickly and it all went pretty well; our challenges have been overcome through teamwark and collaboration.
Now that the change has started, we are eager to share our experiences and hopes for the future.
For this, we asked our team some key questions about our week.
First, we spoke to Evgenij, also know as Eugene, 27, from Macedonia. We asked him what were his motivations for becoming a volunteer. His answer was the most inspired one. He feels that he needs to have some change in his life, while at the same time improving his skills and creating a new mindset. Eugene has the dream of apllying the skills he wishes to gain, in his own country, with the idea of turning abandoned factories into centres, like skateparks.
Andreia, 19, from Portugal shared with us her first impressions of Timișoara. She arrived at night to the city, so she actually thought it was a bit empty. However, after our activities, such as a “quest” around the city, she noticed it’s inherent beauty na charm. As for its people, she believes they are very nice, even though there is a language barrier between our volunteers and them.
This week, one of our biggest surprises was entering the building where our youth centre will be, the one our twenty two teammates will renovate. Metanet, from Azerbaijan, age 1, one of our youngest members, shared her first impresion, which is in syntony with the broad views of our team. She was a bit shocked at first, actually, since there are no floors and a loto f damges. So, concern was one of the main feelings. On the other hand, she felt hopeful and excited. The expression she use was “ I believed in our power”, which completely matches our team’s name “Forțatinerilor”, youth power.
For the past few days, our main goal was to connect with the local community of our neighbourhood, we handed out flyers, hung posters, talked to people and finished the week with a small event in our centre, an open day for people to see what we’re doing as well as trying to engage them and incentivate them to donate some materials and volunteer. Pedro, 23 years old, from Brazil, sometimes felt a difficulty in trying to get commitement from locals. However, people were nice and the youngsters from our neighbourhood showed the most interest. He said “We tried our best and we still have many ideas to try to inform as many people as posible”
To sum up our week, we faced our challenges the best way we could, even though there is always room to improve. Our centre might be the smallest, but it certainly is full of challenges for us to face. We are a strong team, full of strong, wonderful people and we are ready to face the weeks to come, never forgeting the the best we can do this, is to keep positive and have fun.