DAY #1
Monday participants from many different countries arrived after a long trip to the small, beautiful village of Dymes. The STAR project is beginning with a smile. During arrival day participants had the opportunity to meet each other and to have a fast first impression through a couple of funny activities. Have you ever seen a human map? Because we created one.
On the 03/09 the project has officially started. This morning, after a necessary sleep, began with a lot of positive energy. The activities were focused on meet each other deeply and in learning more about the project itself. How hard do you think that is remember a name? Quite easy right? But more than forty names in one day it's a challenge! Of course, our participants are the best so they have learned them fast in a funny and interactive way. During the evening we had the chance to learn about Erasmus+ and Youthpass in a digital and funny way using Kahoot and having a quiz. The last activity of the day, we started getting into the topic of the project, human rights, through the activity of 'Impossible Mission'. Many tasks and limited time forced the participants to work in team and to create fast solutions, discover the area of Dymes and evaluate their awareness on Human rights and the awareness of the locals. Finally, after dinner we met again for the last activity of the day. 'I am unique because...' game helped  the participants had to use their brains at 120%. Are you straight, cross to me?
DAY #2
We started the day wıth the ‘’Soup of Human Rights (HR) ’’, in which we thought about what human rights mean for each participant.We create our soup from our view of HR, by writing our thougths on pieces of paper and then putting them in a bowl. For example, a lot of particapants wrote things like freedom, equality, happiness...etc.
We moved on to an HR history session. In this session we had pieces of paper with certain world events on them, in random order. Our task was to put it in the order of historical chronology. Some facts about HR were surprises to the participants, it was a fun activitiy through which to learn HR history.
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Then, we headed to the picnic area, close to our campsite. It had an amazing view. We had to work in 5 teams and answer some questions about important HR aspects - methods of awarness, oppurtunities and challenges. Fourth activity was ‘’HR in my reality ‘’, in which the participants represented the human rights issues in their country in a creative way.For example a theatrical scene, performances, songs, a make-belive TV show,visual presentions...etc.
To close the day, we had an interesting activity called Take a Step Forward. We were given roles on pieces of paper. The roles were actual people in society, for example, a young man with disability who cannot move without a wheelchair. The leader of the activity, Miranda, read out different rights that people in civilised society should have and we were asked to take a step forward in our role if we thought it applied to our situation. By the end of the activity, it became very apparent that some roles had much more privilege than others.
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Then we had our first culture night of the youth exchange. This night we had Armenia, Estonia and Bulgaria. They all made a presentation about their country as well as brought along food from their culture for the others to try. It was a really fun oppurtunity to learn about other countries!
DAY #3
During the third day of the STAR project, the team learn about story telling. Started by entering the strory telling zone we watched a great video: How to be a hero, we learn a cycle of every hero and with what phases he is tend to face: status quo, departure, new adventure, crisis, assistance, approach, treasure, result, new life, resolution.
Afterwards, the groups was invited to work on some exercises related to storytelling and discussion. Later, all participants were divided into working groups for further development of the movie and discussed potential areas for coverage in regard to human rights and different country context.
After lunch, the STAR group had an interesting activity: divided by a pairs, all participants should find the object to be touched or to be smelled absolutely blinded. Also, there were a list of the questions to prepare a unique story for sharing about feelings and emotions of smells and touches. 5 pairs shared their unique and exiting stories, it was amazing! The final assignment of the day was to prepare some initial scenario for the future video, the groups had emotional discussions and finished the day with evaluation.
Stay tuned :)
DAY #4
In the morning, we started with the colorful hats methodology and had a list of topics to define each storytelling team. The idea of the colorful hats was for helping the teams to define the framework of the chosen topic, to collect some facts, info, and data. This activity helped each group to figure out the main points and they started the script writing during the brainstorming and teamwork.
Then we moved to the picnic area for a storytelling station with the aim to unleash our creativity. Each group was stopping on a different station and following the instructions found to create a story and build script by the start, and the plot then the end.
In the afternoon, it was time for workshops provided by the participants themselves, for of them shared some skills they have with the rest of the group.
This day workshops were :
-Introducation to film-making
-Photography basics
-Mediation
-Video editing
By Evening, the second cultural night took place at the campus. The presented countries were Ukraine, Greece, Cyprus, Somalia then Egypt. Each national group screened a video and presentation about the country, the culture, the History, the traditionnal clothes,folkloric Dance and the main attractions and sightseeings.
Then, each group offered some Authentic local food and drinks at the end of the Evening to let their colleagues imagine the the taste of each country.
DAY #5
The day when our stories becomes videos.
This day was spent in video making and editing. We start this morning with a presentation on how to break down a script and the roles we need to be split into to be ready for shooting. After that, we had a presentation of five common mistakes in video making in order to ensure that we will avoid those mistakes and we will ensure interesting videos. After the presentation each storytelling group grasp the equipment and go around the village to start filming. Each participant had their role as presented previously in order to ensure a smooth filming time.
In the afternoon it was followed another presentation regarding video editing. There was an explanation of what is a timeline and the different materials you put on a timeline as visual and audio. Later on, each group had the chance to practice it in their own devices using different online software to put togethers the footages we did in the morning and start building up the final product.
It was so interesting and useful to experience film making behind the camera and in front of it, as almost all of us has the opportunity to organise the set as well as an actor/actress. It gave us the opportunity to learn new skills and handle different equipment.
DAY #6
In the morning of that day we took the bus for Limassol. Their, we split into groups and have some task in order to explore Cypriot tradition, Limassol history as well as to evaluate locals awareness on human rights. We have some tasks to complete and some of them were: to find illustration of human violation, to ask pedestrians what they understand with human rights, etc. After each team completes the task, we enjoyed walking around the city, having cypriot coffee and relaxing on the seaside.
DAY #7
This day started with the second part of our CoW Space. Four different workshops made from participants took place and each one the group chose the one they were interested. More specifically we had workshops on: ukraine language, Circle of life, oscar
After the CoW Space, we organised a private screening of the videos for the group. The reason of it is for each storytelling group to explain to the rest of the group the idea behind the video and then to get feedback on what we like and what has to be changed.
In the afternoon, we started getting ready for tonight's screening. The group was split into groups to ensure that everything was well prepared. More specifically, we had a cleaning team that make sure the venue is clean, the invitation team that went around the village to remind people about the event, the technical team that helps on setting up the videos, projectors and sound system, the team that finalise the videos after the feedback we got in the morning and the decoration team that created a colourful and beautiful environment for the screening.
Our screening started at 20.30 and people from Dymes started showing up. It was nice to see all our neighbors who embrace as in their village from the first day, to be our guest during this day. So we make sure that we were great hosts. During the screening, each storytelling group had the chance to explain the audience about their videos and how they make it and then to answers questions. It was so nice to have this experience and share with the villagers our experiences and human rights knowledge. After the screening, a small cocktail party was follow with traditional lemonade and rose water and lots of talks with locals.
DAY #8
Day 8
Our last day and everybody was so sad. This day started with our dissemination plan. As we all agree that more people should be informed about the project, the group was split into the national groups and together they brainstormed on ideas on how to spread out the knowledge gained through this exchange. Groups came with some cool ideas that will have a good impact in their local communities.
After that, we went into the eight key competences of the Youthpass. Time was given to us to reflect on our knowledge and write down what we have learnt in order to be able to successfully fill up the youthpass at the end of the youth exchange.
After that, some time was given to the group for final evaluation. We used the method of the SCALE where participants evaluated as a group from 1 to 10 how satisfied they are with various aspects of the project. Then, we had the opportunity to share out loud our thoughts with other participants. After that, we have the individual evaluation that each participant fills up a questionnaire mentioning what they like, what could be improved and what they have learnt.
Our final event was the youthpass ceremony that was combined with the secret friend. Every participant took their secret friend’s youthpass and try to describe them to the rest of the group and guess her/him. Youthpass was the last give was received by our secret friend and that time was a bit emotional.
After that, we had a big group hug and we did not say goodbye but see you soon.
