YE Healthy for life
“Healthy for Life” is a youth exchange with partners from seven EU countries: Romania, Estonia, Italy, Croatia, Czech Republic, Poland and Lithuania. It lasts 6 months, from 1 February 2015 until 1 August 2015, with a period of 11 days of activities, between 10 and 22 May 2015. The location of the activities is the village of Poiana Negrii, close to the mountain resort of Vatra Dornei, Romania. At the activities was present a group of 39 youngsters with ages between 18 and 30 and 7 group leaders.
The aim of our project is to increase the level of awareness about the importance of including physical sports and other outdoor recreational activities in the daily life of youngsters from the communities of the partners involved, underlining their positive impact for a healthy lifestyle, through the use of non-formal education methods, practical activities and experiential learning, in a multicultural context.
Our objectives are:
– To offer additional information and facilitate the exchange of knowledge between the 39 youngsters, under the supervision of the 7 leaders, from 7 different countries, related to the benefits of practicing regularly physical sports and other recreational outdoor activities (trekking, hiking, running), during those 11 days
– To involve the 39 youngsters and the 7 leaders in sports and outdoor concrete activities (individual and team sports, trekking, hiking, running, mountain orientation, etc), helping them to discover and to understand the benefits they can get
– The dissemination of relevant information in the communities of the partners about the benefits discovered by the youngs people, through a blog and a minimum of 5 motivational videos (distributed through Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo, etc) created during the activities
– The establishment of a basis for future cooperation with the promoters involved in this project, as well as their active volunteers, through the creation of a Facebook group which will work as a platform for communication and dissemination of good practices and results.
The working methods at the root of this project are coming from the field of non-formal education and can be split into the following categories: integrative, which stimulate the participants getting to know each other, the group cohesion and dynamics; creative, which stimulate the ingenuity and artistic sense of the youngsters, offering them freedom of expression (artistic presentations, creation workshops); of intercultural learning, which help the participants to surpass their cultural barriers, their stereotypes and prejudices about other cultures; of learning by doing; of reflection and self-reflection.
As a result of this project, the participants find out more information about what is a healthy lifestyle and how can outdoor recreational activities and individual and team sports practiced regularly improve their life, became more aware about how healthy or unhealthy is their own lifestyle and what changes should they make, improved their communication style, learned how to work in a multicultural team, improved the level of their English, manifested an increased civic sense by getting more involved in the problems of the community. Related to the international impact, the most important element is the partnership that we put to good use by implementing “Healthy for Life” between these 7 non-governmental organizations which, above all the differences between them, found a common idea and a common goal. We wish that this partnership will be continued through new projects financed by Erasmus+ or other funding opportunities.
Offical blog: https://hflproject.wordpress.com/
