The youth exchange EU Storytellers took place in Varna, Bulgaria (Detelina Hotel) from 8 to 12 June. The project was focused on the shared EU values, the European Youth Strategy (2019-2027) and its corresponding 11 European Youth Goals and their representation through storytelling and theatre.
A total of 26 young people from Bulgaria, Romania, Poland and Hungary took part in the youth exchange. On day 1, they joined in various introductory activities, explored the European Union, its symbols and functions, discussed their fears and expectations connected to the project’s implementation and presented the partner organisations – FECE (Bulgaria), MultiKulti (Romania), Zielona Stacja (Poland) and Creative Youth Academy (Hungary). FECE introduced the YouthPass Certificate and its importance as a recognition tool for knowledge and skills acquired in the context of Erasmus+. In the afternoon, the participants socialised with each other and enjoyed shared free time on the beach and around the hotel.
On the second activity day, the participants explored each other’s common interests and similarities (Human Bingo), worked on group definitions of theatre and storytelling and took part in two afternoon activities – EU Values Three and Act-it-Out! During EU Values Three they’ve created joint projects promoting the core EU values (freedom, equality, respect of human rights, respect of human dignity, rule of law and democracy) among youth. During Act-it-Out the young people filmed short videos with their representation of various human right articles.
During the third activity day, the participants discussed current issues in the field of equality and inclusion in three domains – personal and domestic life, professional life and popular culture (films, music, tv, advertising and social media) and envisioned a utopian future in 2056 with identified solutions for the existing inclusion and equality challenges in each participating country. In the afternoon, divided into small groups, the young people created fictional personas, advocating for a chosen youth goal and drafted a short story (in a comics format). They also discussed the structure and the key elements of the engaging story.
During the fourth activity day, the teams presented their stories and began developing theatre performances to showcase their messages and inspirations related to the goals chosen the previous day. In the afternoon, they explored Varna together.
During the final activity day, the participants presented 4 theatre performances and unique stories, explored the Erasmus+ Programme, drafted ideas for future Erasmus+ KA1 projects and took part in final reflection and evaluation sessions.
The EU Storytellers project is funded by the European Commission under the Erasmus+ Programme.
