Carnival in La Seu

In honour of the spring, let's make one article about saying Goodbye to winter in a really nice way.
The Carnival.

The Carnival is held every year in February. This festival has its origins in ancient feasts in honour of the winter, celebrating both Romans and Greeks. There are several explanations for the etymological meaning of the word carnival, from the end of eating meat, to the festivities in honour of Indo-European gods.

The carnival has become a festival full of colour and costumes where each person can embody the most colourful character. Normally, gives importance to the originality of the costumes, the more unusual the better. The carnival is celebrated in the street among people who are having diet restriction.

Apparently, for 40 days (exactly like for a Serbian Eastern ) until the arrival of Palm Sunday, you could not eat meat.

Carnival celebrations are held throughout the peninsula and has become a tradition passed from parent to child. Also in schools promote this festival making smaller disguise themselves from very early ages. As you can see on the photos! It was really a joy for me to see all those families with creative costumes walking on the street, singing and having fun. That day, I can say there was a lot of laughs sharing across the streets of La Seu.

Photography by.mARTina malesev

Workshop with kids in Espai Ermangol

Children, but adults too, this time had a meeting with dinosaurs!

They met an author of the book of stories for kids"La Laura els catasaures" who explained to us all about this extinct species. 

 The hall was full! It was really surprising how much these little ones know about animals who even not exist anymore!

The youngest ones were playing and listening an interesting speach of two narrators and later, they enjoyed drawing.

 But older kids were answering on questions about species, about parts of theirs bodies and at the
end, the best of them won a price. This man is great in drawing too, so in a short time, he made a great big sketch and impressed us all!

At the end of this  unusual promotion of the book, it was something usual-  book signing! Every kid wanted a drawing of dinosaur more than words. In the fact,  many of them still dont know how to read a words, but for sure drawing is their area :)

Photography by. mARTina malesev

Intermediate evaluation training in Molina

On February 16-20 took place Intermediate evaluation training. Around one hundred fifty people were participating in that activities, including volunteers, mentors, tutors and organizers, who is working in Spain now and are the part of Erasmus+ programme. All the trainings, seminars and events took place in the small, but nice town Molina, near Malaga.

There were five amazing and intensive days of trainings, discussions, evaluations and conclusions.We had good opportunity to express our impressions about EVS projects, to share feelings and expectations, to give advices to each other about life in Spain, and how to solve the problems, what appeared during the project and how to improve our staying here.

                                   

Except of training and seminars there was also a costume party, free night. So the participants could use this time to enjoy the town and spend time with new friends.

In accordance with our program, we spent one afternoon in Malaga, completing tasks, aimed to explore the attractions of the city.

The next week after training, the information about Intermediate evaluation training in Molina appeared in Malaga newspaper.

Training in Molina was an excellent opportunity to meet a lot of new interesting people, to get a new friends.

More information in  open facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1568794710029403/

"What is European Volunteering Service (EVS) (2014-2020)" presentation in Institut Joan Brodieu

15, 22, 29 of January and 12 of February we had a pleasure to introduce "What is European Volunteering Service (EVS) (2014-2020)" presentation in Institut Joan Brodieu, La Seu d'Urjel.

 

We discussed such key issues as budget, program countries, partner and other countries who can fully or partly participate in Erasmus+ Programme, what is Youthpass (what written in Youthpass, who and how give it, which opportunities it gives).

Children found out 8 keys in EVS:

Communication in the mother tongue, communication in foreign languages, mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology, digital competence, learning to learn, social and civic competence, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, cultural awareness and expression.

If someone are not ready to go to EVS, there are some other opportunities that Erasmus+ Programme gives (Youth exchanges, training, seminars, short term projects, ets.).

Also we spoke about advantages, what participation in Erasmus+ Programme gives, such as good chance to travel, learning other languages, explore the culture of other country from inside, to meet a lot of new interesting people to exchange skills and knowledge, to grow like a person. 

After we tried to imagine how should volunteer look like and drew it in a funny way all together.

They knew more about all applying, find the project, how to contact with sending and hosting organizations.

They saw the photos of ours volunteering projects, and free time, to know how EVS goes at the real life and some videos about this topic.

El tresor del Cadí

7 of February we were in Espai Ermengol,where we saw a presentation from Pep Albanell...He is a famous writer in Catalonia,who wrote more than 100 books.Most of that are childrens book,such is the El tresor del Cadí ... After the storytelling they got a coloring paper with protagonist of story.During listen the story everybody was so concentrated and charmed.We didn't understand anything but it was a good and positiv experience for us,for the children ,but most of for the parents :)

(Josep Albanell was born in Vic (Osona) on Christmas Day 1945. He lived in Seu d’Urgell (Alt Urgell) during his childhood and adolescence. He feels himself a son of both communities, of Vic by birth and family tradition and of Urgell by adoption and devotion. These days he lives in Barcelona. He began journalism studies in Madrid but left them for a degree in Philosophy and Letters (philology), which he received from the University of Barcelona. For many years he worked in publishing. With the pseudonym of Joles Sennell he writes literature for boys and girls. He was one of the originators of Ofèlia Dracs. Between books of short stories, novels, children’s literature and theater, he has written a decent handful of works, some of which won him prizes. He is married with two children, Maria and Francesc, for which he has not been awarded any prize. 

He is a member of AELC (Association of Catalan Language Writers).)

Radio Seu with Volunteers

In 2015 every months you can listen us on local radio.
Radio Seu 107.2 FM

Every time we talk about other topics,the next will be the music from our countries.We will explain  and present with musics. Our motivation for this months from Stevie Wonder:

Music is a world within itself,with a Language we all understand...

We made a Cafe dels Idiomes advertising on 5 different languages-English,Catalan,Ukrainian,Serbian and Hungarian.
" Hello Everybody...
We are European Volunteers from Officina Jove.Do you want to improve your English?Than come to Cafe Xicolata,every Tuesday at 19.00! Follow us...See you there!"

Centre Obert

Every Thursday we are working in Centre Obert with children.Centre Obert is an Organization for helping to the social problems kids.This association is trying to facilitate the daily live of children,and we are here to be participants in this... Three times a week for older(7-12) kids and two times for younger(3-7) ones.There are different occupations-helping with homeworks,some sport activities,games,playing cards,drawing-wich are part of the non-formal learning.
This place has a wide variety of games,100 kinds of colorful pencils,different kind of books-so everyone can find their preferred activity! :)