Really ( VRILI) J J J

Yes Sara, this is the blog that you were asking for so many times J… but don’t  worry we will do it.

I can do it,

You can do it,

We can do it!!!

Really?  (You mean VRILI)J J J

Are you interested to know what we have done until know? Well, believe us, this was really (VRILI) productive week. Intercultural learning, stereotypes, identity, prejudices, conflict, team building, media, peace building, photo and video were the main topic of this week. Yes we worked a lot, and we still do. As some one from our colleagues already wrote before, we are workaholic group even if we don’t look like that  J. You probably saw some strange people walking around in Lisbon filming and making photos of you. Don’t be afraid, we are just trying to make the world better place. In last eight days on this training course we experienced a lot of good and new things.  We learned how to work with each other, to develop some new ideas for the future, and to enjoy our time together. Beside this, we founded very interesting to use photo and video as a way to express ourselves in a creative way. Even our perceptions and point of view are maybe different we manage to do awesome things regarding our topic.  YOU HAVE TO SEE IT!!!!

 And yes, in these last days, Lisbon wasn’t only the place where we worked, but also the place with lot of fun. Belem, Sintra, Cabo da Roca, Bairro Alto, and each street of Lisbon had something to tell us about past, present, future, people, life, habits, joy, cultural differences and similarities between us.   Passing the streets of Lisbon, we saw the life as it is, colored by people, languages, music, love, joy, sun, happy faces, and beautiful nature.  

We can not finish this by not mentioning the all Focus on group :

 Sara, Rasa, Salvatore, Nenad, Angelo, Dragan, Ilona, Eva, Zane, Inese, Maria, Ester, Bahar, Medine, Kate, Orco, Ufuk, Boba, Jasna and Snjezana.

Really ( Vrili) J OBRIGADA

Beijinhos! :*

THE Bosnians! :D

The amazing ones ...

Hello from the most ambitious group! :P
It is officially our first attempt to blog a post, so don't mind us if we are boring or stuff(s) like that. :D
This is the second day that we are working on our video project. So far, so good... except that we are exhausted... but we hope that it will be worth it in the end.
Today...
In the morning we've had a workshop which was held by Angelo. We learned a lot of new and exciting stuff about using camera and video. He showed us videos as examples and gave us some tips how to take good photos and record videos... So thank you Angelo. ;)
Also, we have a confession to make! We were really surprised at lunch time, because the lady who gives food, didn't want to give us enough food, so we are really hungry and sad now. :P :D
Anyways, after lunch.. We've had our coffee and started working again.
"The workaholic group" Yeah, hello there! :)
It is really, really nice being here. We enjoy and use every moment to learn, create, experience something new. We feel like really, really productive and stuff(s) like that. :D
About our video, we hope that you are looking forward to see it, because it will blow you mind. :D No, just kidding, we are afraid that on Sunday you will kill us with you CRITICS, so be gentle people, it is out first time! :D

We love you all
(and stuffs like that)
beijinhos

Nikolovski, Shekutkovska, Tavares.

Focus on Questions!

My third day;
It's nice that all the time there is someone who is smiling around somewhere. And also there is always someone talking instead of you when you don't want to speak a lot. It's also nice :)
Let's speak something serious. It seems like we've spoken a lot about prejudices and stereotypes. Which means these are considerable barriers in front of the construction of the peace in the world, in the life or just inside us. For me, the best way of to overcome is "live and learn". I can say that the most beneficial part of travelling is that it breaks the prejudices down by "live and learn".
In the exercises and games during the course, I've realized that "asking myself" is another good way to overcome. What do they think about me? They? Who are they? Who is the most influencing person or thing in my life between them? Family? Friends, media?
Well, there is no end of questions... Even though, we've asked and replied a lot... That's progress...

Vocabulary:
Bom Dia -> Good Morning
Boa Noichi -> Good Night
Obrigado/Obrigada -> Thank you
Je nada -> You're welcome
Compriendo -> I understand
Claru -> Of course

My portuguese is very bad :)

Are You a Monkey?

What means ''normal'' to you? How people label you? How would you like to label yourself? What characteristics determine who you are? Would you give up your beliefs when meeting other culture? Do you have rights to impose your ideas and values on other culture, even if this other culture accepts and fosters violence? These are just some of the questions that I tried to answer in last few days. Being with people from different countries and cultures helps you to become more aware of who you are, where do you belong and how do you want to live. And from time to time you meet differences in values or interests whose co-existance is indeed complicated. Therefore I wonder if it will ever be possible to have a world free of war and violence? Perhaps it is mission impossible but still there is something we can do to make our surroundings a bit safer place. And one of the important contributions we can make as youth workers and educators is creating and maintaining all kinds of programs that would help children and young people to develop their critical thinking abilities. It is nothing new, I guess, we all are aware that critical mind matters. And still we can find so much examples of lack of critical thinking - in consuming media, in relations with religions, in relations with your own culture... Even formal education tends to limit development of critical thinking - at least in Latvia it rather gives ''correct'' answers than provoces discussion and encourages us to challenge current ways of living.

I would like to share a story from a book about creative thinking ''Thinkertoys''. Its author Michael Michalko asks the reader to imagine a cage containing five monkeys. A banana is then hung on a string inside the cage and a set of stairs placed in the cage leading up to the banana. Whenever a monkey goes up the stairs and grabs the banana, ice-cold water is poured on all the monkeys in the cage. Very soon, as the monkeys begin to associate touching the banana with being sprayed with ice-cold water they will try to prevent one another from trying to get the banana.

The cold water is then turned off and one monkey removed from the cage and replaced with another that doesn’t know anything about the cold water. This new monkey will inevitably try to get the banana, but the other four monkeys will attack him to stop him from doing so. 

 

If another of the old monkeys is removed and replaced with a newcomer, this newcomer will try to grab the banana. The previous newcomer will gladly take part in beating him up together with the other monkeys in order to prevent him from climbing the stairs to the banana. 

 

Slowly, all the original monkey can be replaced with new monkeys in this manner. The cage will now be totally filled with monkeys that know nothing about the ice-cold water, but they will all not try to get the banana and continue to attack any monkey that tries to do so. No monkey ever again approaches the stairs. Why not? Because as far as they know, that's the way it's always been around here.

We often use cultural norms and traditions as excuses of certain behaviours and actions. Often we do not even give a chance for ourselves and others to explore different ways of living and doing things. Do you also accept everything you were taught at school, family and your society just because ''that's the way it's always been around here''? Don't be a monkey! Challenge all assumptions!

Today is the third day at Focus On. This being a very intense trainning course, we are doing activities all day. We have been talking about concepts such as culture, identity, stereotypes ... although it is to express all these concepts throughphotography and video have not yet taken any camera.




Today we had our first meeting more related to the audiovisual field. Through variouspictures and videos we've seen how you can express ideas for change.

Personally, I find this to be very interesting to see how many territories in Europeliving the same or worse situations that I live in Spain. I think if anything is serving methis course is for other realities that are very close to mine. This still very interesting to talk with people from countries with which it had had no prior relationship. So far I'm liking the trainning.

Put some stuff on me, please!

Hello dears.  Your blog here. Now it's lonely, empty, sad, cold and its existence has no sense at all. It's not a good place to be, besides the intentionally chosen warm theme colors and the optimistic sunshine coming in the destroyed room on the photo! Fill it with nice stuff, so that we can call it our TC's home. Make it beautiful so that we can show it to others, will you?