North does it better!

I couldn't but make a brief reference to the wonderful hosting of the Estonian National Agency of the Youth in Action programme during the works of the "NFL goes WWW" seminar (ideas evoked will be processed soon).
It has been such a fruitful experience that proved results do not take time; they take shape through commitment, insistence and vision.
The Agency resides in a country that is as much connected to the Internet as to the practice and promotion of non formal learning (only in Estonian so far). So much, that very few countries in the continent are.
Besides the above, it resides in a beautiful country that it's edge of attractiveness is sharped particularly during May! Go on, visit and, literally, forget what it means to sleep!
I've just noticed that in a month, it is the second time I refer to this "northy". I stop here or I am going to be accused for partiality!
Well done for everything!

Naqemiseni!

S.

A shift of mind

Chatting recently with my dearest friend Maris from Estonia, I discovered a very interesting action that took place last week in this lovely country. So interesting, that in my mind it was translated and accommodated as a "light of hope". BBC has a video reportage about it: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7382489.stm.
It's not only the collection of tones of garbage, which as indisputably a noble act. It's not only the overall coordination which included Google maps, photos uploading, GPS and more, which can not be imitated even from the most sophisticated management systems in large corporations. It's not only that more than 50000 people came together as one, which is a revolution in its own. It's a shift in the minds of the people; a realization of their power and of their responsibility; a deep comprehension that change is possible and an understanding that we, people, are the carriers and purveyors of it!
With the hope that more minds will shift.
A European/World spring cleaning day is what comes to my mind now; may the organizers have the strength, the will and the courage to go about it. I am with them.

Start from your self.

S.

"Societies will start to self organize themselves once nobody can do it better for them".

Has something changed?

It was the best present for my birthday. A book, very delicate and carefully illustrated, highly readable and attractive. I made this present to my self, simply by buying the newspaper that included it!
In its pages I read about this incident dated back in January 1968: The Minister of Education of France was visiting a university. On his way out, he was stopped by a red haired student just to be said "I read the White Paper on Youth, Mr. Minister. In 300 pages there is not even a single word mentioned about the sexual problems of young people"...
This recurring thought in my mind pushed me to read our "generation's" White Paper on Youth. I did it long ago. Good time for refreshment. I am quite informed about its contents. Actually, it's part of my work. But I would read 100 pages simply to see if any of the words and phrases such as sexual, sex, sexuality, sexual health, sexual problems are anywhere mentioned; moreover if they are meaningfully mentioned.
100 pages read...
Yes, they are! Happily, they are!
The same guy, in his most recent book, mentions an anecdote: "As a vice mayor, I was promoting social integration for immigrants. A man, deeply religious, Catholic, right winked and very sympathetic turns back to me and tells me that I am excellent but I don't understand one thing: the problem is not migration, the problem is that some religions do not recognize equality between men and women and that's the basis for democracy". Something has changed; back in the sixties no person sharing characteristics such as his would even think about this value, the value of equality. Something has changed and yes, May '68 was successful...
Sexual and all its derivatives are included in "our" White Paper on Youth. In my humble opinion, this is another indicator that May '68 was successful. But the main success of those events with regards to this Paper is far beyond the inclusion of sexuality; it is that it was young people that shaped it; that young people was consulted, asked and questioned; that young people suggested, proposed and highlighted. A document that "leads" and informs youth policies around EU since 2001. Nothing is criticism - free, but its importance to our lives as young people is indisputable.
Something has changed, indeed.

S.

PS. The stories above and the translation is quite "free style" given. I was not interested in having a detailed reproduction but to give the essence of it. I hope I managed. I don't specify names and places, deliberately. Hint: the "student" is alive and kicking, member of the European Parliament nowadays. A weekend in my summer tent for free for those who guess!

Hiatus

It's been a long time since I last posted something. Well, I want to believe that this "silence" has helped me to clarify things about how I would like that my blog looks like, what it should contain and how I can make it more meaningful. It's for sure that from now on the posts will be more related to my "professional" rather than my "personal" one; although the former involves and includes a lot of the latter. Posts will be short, brief, concise, up-to-date and informative; longer posts, "deep" ideas unfolding and analysis, will have their place too, but not too often. The content will most usually be around the triptych Europe - Youth - Training. But whenever I feel that these or any other sort of restrictions, block me, I will break them! I am also working on techniques to improve readability and to have the blog enhanced with more media and interesting "web programming" stuff. Ideas, are more than welcome.
Thanks a million to some people whose wish to read my writings has been the main push to start blogging again. It is from those and beyond that their comments are expected!

Long live the alphabet!

S.

For some encouragement

...and inspiration; and empowerment; and hope...I recently heard that bloggers of Greece committed a noble act. Some days ago, a man drove his car over a young person and he left him wounded without offering a helping hand as he ought to...The brother of the wounded person, shortly after the accident, publicized this story to the internet. Soon after, bloggers from all over the web - o - sphere started to reproduce this announcement; as the information was being multiplied, the first responses started to arrive; someone saw something, heard something, lived something...The "popularity" that this incident gained among the society, created such a pressure to the person, that he finally revealed himself; and justice is being given...
Once nobody can do it more effectively for them, societies will eventually start to self - organize themselves...Words taken by a person whose personal pathway I would like to explore and his future steps I would like to intriguingly follow...

Nice...

S.

Time for some refreshment

Obviously, if I continue posting one article per month my few but lovely readers will prefer a ride on the waves of moving fun of youtube than coming here to check if anything is posted!
Additionally, this is not going to be a "normal" post, if such expression exists; it is just a reference on what's in my mind and what I would like to see it posted the next weeks when my time will be less occupied by work.
For sure, I would like to dedicate some lines for my experience in Turkey (already been there previous week and I' ll go back again in a couple of weeks). These would be my first visits in this country although historically and geographically so near. Added up to that, the training there is about democracy and participation, so I presume lots of inspiration while carrying it out.
As well, with a great friend of mine and a brilliant brain and character that I so much admire and I really owe to him a great deal of my today's professional and personal capacities we have started an email correspondence on a quite radical topic; or to say it better, the topic is the topic but our approach and "thinking over it" seems to be quite radical...The topic, the topic, the topic (like Ben Stiller responds to his girlfriends telling him "I love you"..."love, love, love!!!"). When I have a good pile of digital information in my mail box, I' ll do my best to make it available in a coherent manner (although coherence in writing is not my vision)...
Certainly I want to comment on the "Freakonomics" book I recently read; rather inspiring, USA at the core but still examples are not far from my reality, absolutely mind-opening with the fear to become way too open-minded, enriching with some practical mathematics one's own vision to the world surrounding him/her. I am not good in writing book reviews, so I would rather bullet point some inspiring aspects of it. I ll see. What I definitely support is the "no unifying theme" approach in their writing and practice (which they somehow parallelize it with the way people write in blogs).
Maybe I ll write something about the festivities time...it depends how inspiring the weather will be.
I want to write something about the situation in Kossovo as well; by the time I come back from Turkey, the deadline from UN is expiring and the developments until the day will profoundly influence the stability in the wider Balkan area.
I want to write about all and everything...but for the moment, I need to keep my eyes open the whole night cause I am catching a red eye flight to Prague and then to Lithuania...
Until next time...

S.

Posting for the environment

That's a great story! A brilliant initiative! A democratic act! A global "chorus"! I am supporting it with all my powers and deep inside of me I am wishing that as thinking leads to typing, reading will lead to acting...
So, here I am posting something related to the environment; every blogger, his/her own points of view, approaches, concerns and ideas. It's been a month more or less that I got to know about this Action Day and since then, with different intensity, I was thinking of what to post. When I stopped thinking, the topics appeared! Magic :) Reading Sunday's newspapers and magazines and preparing my self for the next training course that I am in involved in, starting in 2 days, was enough for me to say "well, that is what I want the world to know from me"...

Army. I am hating it, I always did...It's the worst thing that happened in my life although I had, at most points, an easy time there; what made it shit was boredom, meaninglessnesses, extended money spending, surrounding of immense stupidity settled on non-operating brains...And the article I read came just in time to make me hate it more. Let me explain in brief. OK, you all probably know about the fires that took place at the end of the summer, right? You can all understand the extend of destruction that took place, right? You all feel a pain in your soul seeing all these burning trees, right? (if no, I kindly ask you to get the fuck out of these pages). You all probably assume that it was less than little that the governments did in advance in order to ensure non-destruction, right? Well, a couple of prominent figures (I am throwing up in between), with such brilliant brains (throwing up continues) are thinking of and investigating the possibility, citizens to join the army in cases of emergency and high danger for the state and the well being of its people, such as fires, extreme weather conditions and more. So practically, Sakis, who has been washing dishes and guarding empty storerooms for 18 months, will be asked to save the planet called Greece in cases and places where even highly trained and specialized forces have little possibilities to do so. Moreover, no attention from the state is actually being paid to all these non governmental environmental organizations that are doing incredible job in awareness raising, sensitization and even protection of the forests and the environments. No specific measures and mechanisms towards the support of volunteers are actually implemented; it was enough to squish them during the Olympics, Greece will be asking for their "helping hands" in 100 years, when we will probably again claim our historical rights to host this show. In few words, either these people are completely stupid and brainless, or they want to support an ill, almost dying, factor of today's reality in Greece (and all gold-figures-filled-collars entities) expecting to be supported in return...in the next elections. The message: the environmental crisis should not be the excuse for wars, terrorism, financial profit, vote-hunting and most of all, should not be left in the hands of bold, tie-wearing, over aged "burnt" politicians; or at least, not exclusively to them...Should I say now, that WE must take the situation in our hands or is it too obvious?

Outdoors. There is a session, in the training course that I designed and I will be "delivering" the next days, on the future challenges for outdoor education. Climate change and environmental crisis! There you go. Non profit organizations and educational institutions must invest on that before profit-making corporations get the whole of the pie. Because certainly, this "global effort" towards the saving of our planet will trigger an amazingly diverse amount of action, activities, mechanisms, processes, meetings over meetings, papers over papers and so on. The so called "outdoor education", I believe it will be one of these fields that will go through a "golden era" now that our planet's dooms day is approaching rapidly. Cause indeed, I found out, after going through different researches and documentation, outdoor education is not as popular as it used to be 20 years ago. A main reason for that is related to schools and budget cutting from the states; whenever there was needed a budget cutting in education in highly developed countries the last years, the first sections that were suffering from that were the outdoor education programs and field trips! Meaning that for a child's education, environmental awareness, harmony with the nature, wise use of resources, personal integrity and development (among countless others) count less than math, history and bla bla bla...I am almost forced to think in the radical and multidimensional connect-the-unconnected way that the author of "Freakonomics" thinks by saying that it is of no surprise why forest fires and environmental damage are greater than ever before...because some passing-by, stiff and brainless, superficially human, anorgasmic (we use it in Greece...) politician decided some years ago to cut budgets for education; and consequently he/she decided for the fate of this planet that belongs to everyone...grrrrrrrrr, if I ever find this butterfly... So, yeah, outdoor education, but in the hands of people and communities of practice, of groups and organizations, not - only - profit makers. The last lines was the message.

Keep the lights off tonight, light up a candle...And if you are in for some meaningful melancholy, go through the pictures of burnt trees while listening to Graig Armstrong's "As if to nothing" album...

S.