Christmas, you said?

This is an article about a bit different Christmas to the one that you are normally used to. It is about Christmas seen through the eyes of an Atheist. I assume that at this point many of you are angry at me and think that it is nothing but arrogance to put Christianity and Atheism together and are in temptation to scroll down or to report this article for being annoying or not interesting. But, before you do that I would like to ask you to give me a chance and I may convince you that this is not mixing apples and oranges.

   Now that I have your attention back I will start from the beginning. I was not always an Atheist. I was born and raised in religious family that followed the principles of the Orthodox Church. And those who are familiar with this branch of Christianity know that Orthodox Christians have rules about everything and tons of legends about what happened to those who did not obey them. The normal reaction of a child that grew up under these circumstances would be to become a loyal Christian following the example of the parents and of the close family members. And normally the story would have ended here and you would not have to read this but I did something that in my family is still considered to be “taboo”. I thought outside the box. It was long time ago but I think that my first “sinful” thought was about Christmas. Isn`t it the best invention of all times? If I had minimum knowledge of science I would have said that there is a so-called “Christmas formula" and that is how Christmas was created at first place. A simple but genius formula to make everybody happy. Believers celebrate the birth of their God, children receive presents from their favorite character - Santa Claus and companies have this “grand finale” at the end of the year after their income has been increased by 80% thanks to their loyal customers and their idea of spending all the money on presents. It sounds pretty genius to me. Fortunately, this holiday has a second face; the more profound one. The one that is more concentrated on giving and receiving love, sharing happiness, forgiveness and hope. And if you ask me this has nothing to do with Christmas. It has to do with something bigger than that - humanity. Sounds familiar? Here`s a hint. It is a word that does not apply for Christians or Muslims or Jews or religion in general. It applies for humans and being a human is a mystery for itself. It does not surprise me why there are so many holidays. They exist to remind us to what specie we belong to and what are the responsibilities that come with it. We usually forget who we are and why are we here. And it is not until Christmas or Easter or Hanukkah that we rediscover the urge to treat others right and use our human powers to make ours and other people`s lives easier. It is good to have reminders, I mean, we need them. Seventy years, more or less, is a long time for a human. The problem is that we spend twenty days of trying to be good people and the others three hundred and forty-five to demolish everything that we were more than lucky to get as ones. Constant behavior for two thousand years and not a single religion could change it. The question here is unavoidable. If the religions don`t have a solution, then who has it? The answer is simple. We just need to change the perspective and take a closer look. Imagine the World as a place where every day is Christmas. Close your eyes and you can see people with cheerful faces greeting each other and wishing good health, love, happiness and wealth. The enchanting melody of carols makes you sing. The whole family is gathered for dinner. The adults sit by the fireplace and drink hot wine while the kids use their absence of attention and eat all the cookies at the table. The less fortunate are not longer to be forgotten. They receive clothes, food and shelter. People forgive and forget. The World is in peace…

    It feels good, right? The good part is that we don`t have to imagine it, we can do it. We are humans. We have absolute power to do whatever we want. We have the power to create the World and recreate it over and over again. If we just for once stop investing in all those absurd wars and start investing in our own happiness… I will finish the article with the words of Elvis Presley and leave you space to think about it.

     “Oh, why can`t everyday be like Christmas,

Why can`t that feeling go on endlessly

For if everyday could be just like Christmas

What a wonderful world this would be.”

Intercultural Evening

Recently the members of the OLE project took part on an event which is always very special for the volunteers: an Intercultural Evening. This event, organized by the volunteers of Life+ project (and also our dear friends) took place in Free Wine Pub and was opened to all the community, to give Romanian people the opportunity to learn more about different cultures.

And what cultures are those, may you be wondering. Since there are volunteers from dozens of different countries, this type of event tries to explore the diversity at its best. This time the beautiful countries presented were Spain, Italy, Portugal and Macedonia and there was time for a lot of different activities to show the best about them.

As soon as the guests arrived they could immediately see and recognize the presence of the four countries through decorations, flags of each country, photographs of the most traditional cities, symbols and traditions. Then, as the night went on, the guests had opportunity to learn about interesting facts of each country through a guessing game, to watch and participate in traditional dances of different countries and even to watch a performance about Italian gestures!

Popular songs from each country were accompanying all these great moments because, as we all know, music is such an important part of every culture! In the end of the performances everyone had the opportunity to taste typical food from Spain, Italy, Portugal and Macedonia and I can honestly say that congratulations are in order, since the food was amazing! Lots of Romanian people tried it and we could see the happiness in their faces while eating tortilla de patatas, rabanadas or apple pancakes!

In conclusion, this was an amazing event that allowed the volunteers and the locals to share their cultures, try different foods and get involved in a new experience of culture exchange. To be repeated very soon, for sure, because one of the most beautiful things of volunteering abroad is opening up to new ideas, cultures and knowledge, at the same time as you share your own!

Ladies and getlemen, His Highness - FOOTBALL

   Trough out history, kicking a ball or something that looked like a ball was bringing joy to humans. This is how football was invented. At the beginning the rules of the game were very few and simple. During the years the game underwent major changes in the number of players and rules but its goal remained the same – having fun.

   The greatest thing about football is that you do not have to kick the ball to have fun; you can watch the others doing it and be amused as well. The past week the volunteers from ”OLE” decided to bring joy to their loyal pupils and for that manner they organized a football tournament. They named it “Future talents of Mihai Eminescu” and they were right about the name. These kids are talented and their future is brighter than “Alianz Arena” in Munich. Since this was the first event of “OLE” it came as a big surprise to see One hundred and twenty pupils organized in thirteen teams signed in for the tournament. But, as they say: The more, the merrier! And merrier it was. Thirteen teams were carefully chosen to represent their class and supported by cheerleading teams – their classmates. Each team had its own cheerleading team and each cheerleading team did the best to offer its team the best support. Pomes in different colors, confetti and banners with “Tigri albastri” , “FC Arad” , “Go 3C!” and many more could be seen everywhere. As always, football did its magic. The whole school was talking about it and the players of the winning teams were welcomed in the corridors with applause and ovations. As an acknowledgment of their effort and devotion the winners of first place were given a trophy and a foot ball while the winners of second and third place received certificates of participation. Every participant in the tournament received a small gift which was donated by the non-governmental and non-profitable organization “Aspis association” from Arad. It is nice when you have friends to support and help you, isn`t it?

   What I learned from this tournament is that during the years not only the rules of football have changed but the meaning of it has changed also. Football is not only a game; it is a way of life.  A good one! 

New experience: First Aid Training!

As every volunteer realizes very fast when they start this experience, European Voluntary Service is about much more than only one project. Since knowledge is never enough and the most important thing in EVS is doing as much (quality) things possible, we take advantage of every opportunity we have to try new experiences.

Last week was time for first aid training with Red Cross. During three hours we had the chance to learn about health and how to act in emergency situations, so that we can be able to react in a positive way if we encounter this type of case during EVS.

The experience was great! We had a very patient trainer, who taught us step by step what to do in different emergencies, such as if someone is choking, unconscious or seriously hurt in a leg or arm.

For every example we would learn first the theory and then we would do it ourselves, what made us really understand how difficult it can be and what we should do to make it easier. We also learned the importance of thinking fast and improvise when we do not have the desired equipment at hand. 

After all, I can say that we are now definitely more prepared to deal with the emergencies we can come across, which is extremely helpful for our volunteer work. I feel now more confident when I am responsible for the children in the school, since I have knowledge of what to do if they get hurt during any sports activity. 

2 Months of a Portuguese in Arad - TV and UTA

Big awareness, big challenges and big rewards.

From adapting to the language, trying to understand what people say, involve in the local community and with the volunteers, sharing a place with people that we never imagined to share, play with the children and adapt to local customs, etc.

All big challenges that in the end will make us stronger.

So far, so good and it stills can get better. Romania is more and more understandable despite of speaking might not be one of my biggest strenghts due to the lack of vocabulary and some misunderstandings of the "rules" of the Romanian way of speaking. 

Local community and children, it is quite possible the integration. Of course the language gap might lead to some misunderstandings but with the basic, will and gestures, everything might be possible. I have appeared on local TV (TV ARAD), also in a video of the UTA ARAD facebook (the main local football team!), the kids try to understand my romanian and what I pretend of them...so step by step and things are getting done!

UTA ARAD VS Chindia Târgoviște - VIDEO OF THE PARTY

What can I give as an example of success from gestures and lack of Romanian Language?

Entering into a store looking and trying to find out some halloween customs. The store only had Masks. So I asked "pe halloween?", and she replied "Masks". Ok, then I said Halloween customs and started to move on my jacket and pants, and she replied "Haine" (that means clothes in Romanian). After that, she told that she didn't had but gave me a card and the coordinates to the place (asa, aici, acolo, la stunga, la dreapta, da, multumesc, cu placere).

Step by step things are figuring out. Matter of time of "almost  full" adaptation.

Spanish classroom and Art Conferences.

Hello everyone!

We are Ana and Daniel, and we want to explain you some reasons because we decided to do the Spanish Clasroom and the art conferences in the school of art of Arad.

Daniel and me decided to do more things for the Arad society. For that reason we asked in that place for interact and teach art knowledge for the teenagers because we studied history of art at the University of Madrid.We will teach Spanish in Monday and Wednesday since 3 until 4.30 p.m. The Art Conferences will be until June twice per month. We are preparing s blog to share more information about art and about the conferences and our schedule. They will be in Thursday since 2 until 3.30 p.m.

With our work in the school of art we want to teach what I learned in our degree. We want to share and interact with that future artists. We want to make the potential of these future artists and be an example to follow the path of the humanities. It is the way of personal and social learning, the way teaches you to be a person, become interested in what's around you.

Volunteers in Romania: the power of non-verbal communication

It is known that communication is one of the most important parts of the life of any human. Being a social creature, human beings need to communicate, to share ideas, to develop connections through language.

One of the biggest challenges we face while doing volunteer in Romania is the language barrier. If you work mainly with people who speak English this is not a problem, but this is not the case for us. Every day we go to the schools and we have to overcome the fact that we don’t speak Romanian and that the kids we are teaching don’t understand English.

In this point, facing the challenge of communicating through words, we have only one option: using non-verbal communication. And this is when the fun starts. When I went in my first class, I was surprised. There I was, with two of my colleagues, a teacher who barely spoke English and two dozens of kids that only spoke Romanian. In these types of cases, there is only one rule to be followed: don’t use only words. Facing this situation, we had to make gestures, show the games we wanted to play by giving examples, smile or make an angry face according to each behavior the children had.

Nonverbal communication has been intensively studied and discussed by specialists. It is known that this is a very important part of any conversation, . The tone of your voice, the amount of time you look the people you are communicating with in the eye and the gestures you make are of extreme importance in any conversation and they can affect the way the other person receives your message.

If non-verbal communication is important when both the intervenients speak the same language, you can imagine its importance in communication between people who don’t understand each other through traditional language. 

In the beginning it can be difficult and sometimes even frustrating. It is possible that in the beginning you cannot send your message in the right way or the others cannot understand you. Maybe in the beginning you will have to explain something over and over again until your message is perceived. Maybe you will be shy and you will not communicate in the best way. But every day you will improve and someday this will be totally natural for you.

And in the end, everything works just perfectly: the children play the games we organize and enjoy them, they understand us through our gestures and they like us a lot.

So, think about it every day in your life: by improving your non-verbal communication skills you can improve your competence, share your ideas in a better way and be able to communicate with people who speak different languages from your own. 

And, most important, loose the fear of doing something or going somewhere just because you don’t understand the language. 

Ana Esteban Sánchez

Hi everyone!

My name is Ana Esteban Sanchez, and I am 22 years. From my family background, my parents belonged to Amnesty International campaigns, have taught me what the social struggle. An awareness that must be based on the experience in activism and social and international volunteering.But  I learn other way of learning. It was from the experience, travel and visiting other cultures and countries. For that I started to study History of Art at the University of Madrid. 

But since that, I decided for my own count to be a volunteer. First in Red Cross, working with children in risk of exclusion, after in a NGO that work with gype people. But I wanted to know more, so I started to do online courses about violence of gender, arteteraphy, musitheraphy, cooperation, social work. All of them were used to apply a in my voluntary experiencies. In fact I did a international volunteer in Morocco in 2013 during 1 month.For me, It was not enough so I decided to spend the next summer in a school of Guatemala. For that I hade to be ready with a very long preparation. I need to spend my time helping other. I love reading, about cultures, anthropology, human right (I teach them in some many high school in Madrid), to know people, the art, and the potential of the exclusion people.

After studing during four years in the University I decided to spend time learning in a non formal education experience. For that reason I applyed for a EVS Project. I think Romania has all the things that I practice in my life; social work, non formal eduaction, outdoor leisure education and cultural facts. I want to do more social work activities in my free time. I stay here in Romania to help, to teach, to learn and to interact not only with children, also with all the local community.

x

Francisca Ramos

Hello everybody,

I am Francisca, I am 21 years old and I just arrived to Romania two weeks ago for a volunteer adventure in Arad!

I am from Porto, one of the most beautiful cities in Portugal (and for me, in the world) and I am a wannabe journalist. My great passion in life is travel and I have been doing it as much as I can for several years now.

After four years studying journalism in Portugal, I decided I needed a new experience and some time to grow as a person, to get to know more of the world and to use my skills to help others. I found the perfect solution to connect my passion for travel and this new desire: joining European Voluntary Service!

So now I am in Arad, Romania working on the Outdoor Leisure Education (OLE) project for 9 months. So far I am really liking it: I have met amazing people, I love the children I work with and I feel more useful here than ever.

Besides OLE, my organisation also allows me to work in other projects, such as with people with mental disability and people without economic resources. This is a big plus, since I can try different things and learn new educational approaches.

I am very excited about this new experience and my new life! Be able to help others and really make a difference in someone's life is extraordinary and I recomend it to everyone.

           Formal education or non-formal education?

What is non-formal education? What are the differences? Our trainer tried to explain the difference briefly.

In a nutshell, formal education is linked with schools and training institutions; non-formal with community groups and other organizations. Non-formal education is highly enriching and builds an individual’s skills and capacities.

This non-formal education training lasted for two days, putting together 31 volunteers from different countries and with different age in a same room to share experiences and ideas. But the aim of this training was to teach all of us different kind of non-formal educational methods, approaches and how to improve our performance at work.

We spoke about the cycle of learning process consisted of: experience, reflection, conclusion and application. We shared our opinions about the question how we should prepare activities, and what are the important factors that could influence the success of our activities.

Since we all work with kids, we shared the same ideas about the important factors as: material, age, language barriers, number of students, time, risks...

Oh, but this rainy day may looked a bit boring at the beginning, but that’s why we had the best trainers who knew how to cheer us up. Besides, with their creative games like DJPET( dream, joy, passion, energy, travel), we learned something more about ourselves, something new and fun. It was the perfect way to find a new friend or to see that your first impression about someone was so wrong. J

        The main actors of the second day were the volunteers. We were divided in 9 groups and each group had to prepare an activity that was supposed to include the process of non-formal education. Well, you can never know how creative can people be. Each of the groups had to present their activity and then we had a short discussion about the performance, instructions, conclusion...

We started with a nice team-building and non-verbal activity, continued with more and more dynamic games. We learned who likes to party, to eat ice-cream, to dance, to drink wine, to travel, to sing under the shower, to learn Chinese language, and etc.   What are the synonyms for: EVS, respect, tolerance, solidarity and confidence?  We got a lot of different and even weird answers.

How are you going to describe Leonardo Di Caprio, Freddie Mercury, Miley Cyrus, the Psy or Bruce Lee with pantomime? Or, how can you guess whose dream profession was: to be an astronaut, a teacher, a rock singer, a psychologist, a football player and etc. Can you name a fruit that starts with the letter J? Yeah, me neither. J And I really wanted to win and take one of the prices, because Maja’s backpack looked really heavy so, I was wondering what the prices were.

Indeed, we enjoyed in each activity. OK, the math activity was cruel, thanks for reminding me that I finished high school a long time ago. J

Alba Bailon

Hi all!

My name is Alba Bailon, I am from Madrid (Spain) and I had never left my city before. I am 28 years old and after a period working with young people planning trainings and doing logistic issues, I decided to go somewhere for me to have real work experience at doing activities with people (children above all) who need help and support in their personal lives.

So, one day I saw a project called "OLE: Outdoor Leisure Education" which the main activity was working with overweigh children doing outdoor activities. It impressed me so much and I really wanted to take part in this project. So, here I am, in Arad (Romania).

I am so excited about the project, and the best part is that we are not only working with overweigh children, but all kinds, children in risk of exclusion, teenagers who have to learn some language, children with mental disabilities, etc.

Today I am starting my work at Integra, with children with mental disabilities and I am so excited about meeting them and show my best to try to help them and make them a little bit happier.

I am full of energy and with a lot of willing attitude to do all the things I could!

André Pinto - Portugal

Olá a todos,

In the age of 23, André Pinto decided to have a new adventure and got out from his home country to make 2500km to the city of Arad in Romania. Thank you for the 2 hours Time-zone.
He was living in Monte de Caparica, most known in Portugal as being part of the region "Margem Sul", referring to the people that lives on the region immediately in the south of the Tagus River.

How did he came from so far away to Arad in Romania?
Open-mind to new challenges and adventures, willingness to travel and to know the unknown, balanced life with the family, balanced life with studies and work, and here he is!!
Owner of a Bachelor in Management and work experience of 1.5 years in PepsiCo Portugal, he decided that he couldn't stop!! He knew before-hand about his future perspectives in the company, so he got commited to follow one of his life-goals to accomplish, TO BE A EVS VOLUNTEER!!
Contract was going to end in 31st of August, so...what projects start in September?
Here it is, OLE!!

Story of 22nd August:
- Place: Kitchen while having a typical dinner in family
- Key moment: Sharing the new about EVS Volunteering
- Action: "Family, After 4 months outside home and only coming for the weekends and with the fact of the contract ends in 31st August, I have to say that in 7th September, I'm going to Arad in Romania to do volunteering for the next 11months"

Want to know more about this? ASK ME

Huge fan of football and Portugal, don't know about cooking and washing...but he will find out because he have attitude!! And with attitude, you can go everywhere you desire :D

Nice to meet you all! Enjoy this post as much I will enjoy to do the volunteer here.

Mulțumesc!!

Daniel Villanueva

Hi everyone!

I'm Daniel Villanueva. I was born in Jerez de la frontera (Spain) 22 years ago. A little place where the roots of flamenco grows up. Now I'm Arad (Romania) doing this project during 11 month with great collegues. Moreover, I'm a lucky person to be here, because I work and live with my couple, my happiness.

The main objective of the project is to help the teachers to improve the classes of sports, improve the eating habits and motivated to the childrens to have a healthy life. But I have the opportunity to work in more projects on my own. Why I want to spend my free time working more? Because there are many things to do here, and I think that I can put my little grain of help developing somebody or something. I know this because after a good work, the childrens give us lot of hugs and said us multumesc all the time. Maybe it's strange decided to come here, living with only pocket money and work all the days for free. I'm crazy, I know, but for this reason I'm volunteer. 

I have clear my ideas about alimentation and nutrition. I'm vegetarian since 3 years ago, and I try to learn more about it, because there are so much prejudices. But what's more funny that go to the open market, buy fresh vegetables, cook and doing sports?

Romanian football

        I used to watch football a lot with my brother, supporting our favorite teams, shouting like crazy, disturbing our parents and the neighbors. J

To be sincere, it was mostly because of the football players, not that I was that interested in football, and I had a list of the most handsome ones... Oh and I still have a few posters of Beckham in my room.

So, my brother had a hard job to convince me to be reasonable while I am choosing my team, not just particular players that were good looking.J

The last few years I couldn’t find time to watch football, but I am still a huge fan of Juventus and I have to mention Inter too (just as a moral support to my brother).

        Few days ago, I was asked to work at the Stadium (Stadionul Motorul) during the football match - UTA Arad vs Pandurii Targu Jiu. I was concerned that I will be really bored there, but anyway I decided to go. I worked with the volunteers from Future Capital, we were split in 4 teams.

I was surprised that people here really care about the local football clubs, and how many people came to watch the match. It was a bit tiring because I didn’t have the chance to sit but again I had the opportunity to speak Romanian with local people.

Oh, and I also saw the football players, but unfortunately I forgot to take pictures. J  

        The staff lady that worked with me thanked me many times for my help. So, after all I really like Romanian culture and Romanian people. Also, I really wanted UTA team to win.

And at the end, it wasn’t boring at all.

Hi everyone! Welcome back!

Hi everyone! Welcome back!  

   We know that summer always feels like it is over before it even starts (if you are a kid) but if you are a volunteer full of energy and with many ideas and goings-on on your mind that you cannot wait to put into practice for you summer feels more like hundreds of slow-mow grannies standing in line in front of you while you are desperately waiting for your favorite Nutella stuffed chocolate chip muffin with berries on top. And, that can be frustrating.

    Now, that we got rid of the summer we can happily announce that the school year has started and our dreams finally came true. The last week we went at “Mihail Eminescu” middle school, here in Arad, and enjoyed the presence of the pupils who, on our big surprise, were more than happy to follow our instructions and do whatever we suggested. Because we have started to work with preschoolers and with first, second and third grade classes we were able to combine warm-ups, play some games and do sports. The warm-ups, of course, are necessity but it is a well-known fact that the children are not very crazy about them and that is why we have decided to spice them up a bit. We used the basic exercises for improving the motor skills and wrapped them up in fun and dynamic games. We also played some of the games that our trainers showed us on the on-arrival training. Considering the fact that we, the grown-ups, enjoyed these games a lot it was obvious that the pupils were going to love them.

    Of course, we couldn’t do anything of this without our facilitator Ana who spoke with the personnel in the school to accept us as volunteers and without the gym teacher who was very supportive and gave us a chance to be her “assistants”. The good news is that we won’t stop here. We have more schools to attend and more pupils to educate and have fun with.

It was a good start of the year. We are full of positive energy and still have eight more months to achieve our goals. 

Party like a Macedonian

Let me tell you something about Macedonia. This was my first event as European volunteer- to present my country to other volunteers. We are three Macedonian volunteers working on the same project called OLE, together we prepared the Macedonian night. We had a few ideas how to name the event, we wanted to be something different so we called it '' Party like a Macedonian''.

We prepared invitations for our guests, the volunteers with whom we have been working on projects and representatives from the hosting organization. We begun with the preparations a week before the event. We created posters from the most significant and important places in our country, places that we wanted to recommend to our friends to visit. We tried to present our tradition and habits in a creative way in order to create a positive atmosphere. We spoke about our cities, our tradition and rituals, Macedonian music and folklore. Not only the handmade candle jars, but also the bracelets with the colors of our national flag were made for our guests.

It was really hard to decide which of our traditional food we should prepare. It took as all day to finish the cooking, a few traditional meals that are typical for our country, some salads and desserts also. We worked like a team, and we manage to finish everything on time. The guests seemed to be really satisfied, they congratulated us for the delicious food, interesting stories and the gifts. We were happy to see that everyone that was invited came, also the people from our hosting organization. We felt really proud of our first event thanks to all the positive reactions we got.

Maja Golubova

Buna!

   My name is Maja Golubova and I come from Kochani, Macedonia. I am 25 years old and only a month ago I took the most exciting and challenging trip of my life – exploring who I am.

   My life so far is the same as of any other 25-year-old. Following the rules of the society I graduated from high school of Economics just to find out that I am not much into accounting. The next thing to do, to satisfy my parents and everyone else except me, was to enter a university. This time I`ve decided to be more honest with myself and follow my interests so I chose to study English language. Now, you think that that I`ve finally found my passion, but you are not even close. The university only made things worse. Although I enjoyed studying English, I have been studying it since I was 8, I did not get clear idea how to turn my knowledge into profit because that is what the university diploma`s for, right? I`ve tried to keep up the pace with my age group and found a job as a waitress just to play the “independent” role. But, if you are from Macedonia you know that here the independence costs a lot of “MK Denars”! I quit my job and I was about to give up everything, get a backpack and become a Nomad when a friend of mine came up to me with a suggestion. He said “Why don`t you try volunteering in Romania? I`ve been there, I liked it and it helped me to move on with my life.” And score!!! I needed no more explanations. I asked my boyfriend if he wants to be my companion on this “adventure” and when he said yes I knew that Romania is my next destination. We send our application to VCS, they forwarded it to EVS and after few days we were chosen for our volunteering mission in Arad.

  

After a month spent here in Arad I can say that so far I don`t have any regrets. We were well-received by the hosting organization and accommodated in an apartment with two amazing guys from Spain and Italy. Here we`ve also met many other volunteers from around the World that work on different projects what makes our stay even more exciting. Now let me tell you about our project – OLE. OLE or Outdoor Leisure Education is a project that involves the children with obesity. Our goal is to show these children how to lead healthy live and be physically active. As in any other country in the World the children in Romania are also the greatest clients of fast food stores and the problem became so big that the authorities couldn`t solve it by themselves. In the next 10 months 9 volunteers from Macedonia, Spain and Portugal will give their best to promote healthy eating habits and physically activity as a way of life among youngsters mainly through outdoor activities such as horseback riding, bicycling, hiking and organizing sport tournaments.

  I am really optimistic about the project and I promise I will keep in touch with any updates about it.

   Till then, stay well and do something good for the mankind.

Natasha Stojcheva

Hello!

My name is Natasha, and  I am not 19 (just for the record). I am from Macedonia, currently volunteering in Arad, Romania.

My project will last for 11 months and I am quite sure this will be a huge opportunity for me to learn new skills and strengthen the ones I have.
This project enabled me to learn and improve a few languages, thanks to my Italian and Spanish flatmates, also the  kids and the  people I met in Romania. 
My project is called OLE (Outdoor leisure education) and my obligation is to help the obesity kids by doing physical activities, improving their eating habits and encourage them to lead a healthy life. I am also having the opportunity to work with other volunteers on different projects and events.
So far everything has been great, and I am pretty sure I will miss Arad and all the great peope and friends I met here.

Ivan Iliev

Hello good people!

My name is Ivan Iliev, I am 23 years old and I come from Kochani, Macedonia. I spent the last year of my life trying to figure out what I want from my life and to be honest it exhausted me to maximum. Unlike most of my friends I wasn`t much into university so I`ve decided to sum up my skills and talents and see how can I take an advantage of it. It turned out that my passion for music, cooking, playing with kids and doing sports is suitable for volunteering work. I`ve never been part of any volunteering organization but it was time for me to turn a new page and do something new. While you are reading this I am in Arad, Romania volunteering on an 11-month project named OLE or Outdoor Leisure Education together with two volunteers from Macedonia and six more from Spain and Portugal (that we are still waiting to come).The project will involve the children with obesity problems and our mission will be to teach these kids how to eat healthy food, do some sports and live longer and happier live. I am excited about this project and I hope that my mission here will be successfully accomplished.

For those who are reading this: I suggest you to take part in volunteering around the World because it`s a big experience and once in a lifetime adventure.

Outdoor Leisure Education

Childhood obesity

Childhood obesity has become a huge problem and we should better start paying attention to it. The problem is not just the body weight, as a matter of fact, there are many severe health problems that we are might not aware of. Parents need to be informed what childhood obesity means and how should they treat the problem. Obesity is linked to many serious diseases such as heart problems, cholesterol, high blood pressure, sleeping apnea, and many more. Besides, kids don't want to be mocked for being overweighed, right?

How can we help parents to fight the childhood obesity?

 We know that the main problem is that kids eat more calories that they can burn, but parents cannot just make their kids stop eating, they need to encourage them to lead a healthy life.
It's not just the food that is causing the obesity problem.  Thanks to the modern technology, kids today are not interested in sports, they even forget how to socialize.  That's why parents need to convince their kids of the downsides these technologies have and try to spend more time with them. Support is what kids will need mostly. Parents need to rethink what kind of food they are going to offer to their kids and instead of buying them expensive phones they should start thinking about some outdoor activities that will help their kids be more active. Why not just buy a bicycle rather than the new iPhone?
Parents must inform themselves how serious childhood obesity is before it's too late.