The “Under the common sky” project came into being due to personal contacts and multidimensional cooperation of all partner organisations. Based on common interest in photography we prepared the project aiming at the development of participants’ skills development, although different groups used them in different context. The Romanian group leader and a member of Italian organisation have professional experience in the field of photography, so they were the most competent to conduct a photography workshop. The Antares Foundation members are astronomy students so they could share their knowledge about astrophotography conducting corresponding workshops in the Izera Mountains. Coming back to Cracow, Andor Tari from Green Beans with Mayonnaise cooperated with his Estonian friend to conduct a workshop showing free internet photo edition programs. Photos prepared that way were presented to our younger friends from Chemical High School Complex in Kraków. Using the photography we want to plant the seed of interest in natural science.The planned APV did not come to being due to formal errors in the application form. The group of participants was a bit different than planned because a long period of time that had passed since the preparation of the project. We had one more Romanian participant instead of Estonian one. All the leaders agreed to make an opportunity for experienced young people to join the youth exchange even if they did not fulfil the upper age limit. On request of the Estonian organisation we decided to engage younger participants as well (above 17 years old). Those decisions were made unanimously in the team of group leaders during the preparation phase.The International Youth Exchange took place in Cracow and the Izera Mountains because of the specific character of the project and good conditions for stars observations. The youngsters developed soft skills, got to know the other cultures as well as worked together on the photo exhibition. Some of participants became more interested in international cooperation and European issues. The new idea of a Transnational Youth Initiative was introduced based on cooperation of two partner organisations. The key competences development was the most important result of our project. During the final evaluation the participants filled up anonymous surveys. They could rate different aspects of the youth exchange in a 7-points scale. Organisational skills and a sense of entrepreneurship gained 5.3 points. The cultural awareness and connection between the other European nations was rated on 5.8 points on average. Artistic and linguistic competences were developed the most by the participants (6.3 and 6.4 points respectively).On our webpage you can find the best photographs made and selected by participants of the project: http://fundacjaantares.pl/

The project Lead Your Community Ahead wasa mobility of youth workers aimed on development of leadership competences of young leaders in age of 16 – 19 years, who have been active in their communities and schools. It was realized in small village Ptičie in eastern Slovakia with participation of 25 young people from Slovakia, Poland and Hungary.The aim of the project was to teach young leaders how to lead and motivate other young people, how to work in a team and how to be a good leader; how to adopt techniques of planning and time management. These topics were implemented by non-formal education methods such as workshops, games, discussions, role plays, presentations and others. A strong feature was outdoor education – 2-days hiking trip in Vihorlat mountains – participants did experience working with their individual motivation, were overcoming obstacles together with others, they were dependent on communication and cooperation within a team, or taking the responsibility on one`s own.One of the outcomes of the project is strengthening of young leaders‘ competences within a work with their peers in communities, reinforcing level of activities of these groups and improving mutual relationships. Participants have learned how to plan processes and to motivate others, what is benefit not only for them, but also for their schools, families or town. In longterm perspective, the multiplication effect is expected for the development of local youth communities by mutual sharing experiences and motivation to be proactive young leaders.

The project Making SOAP: Sustainable Options for Active People is a training course on exploring sustainable approaches to work, life and education starting from the local resources. The aim is to foster the social change towards a more fair and sustainable world, where respect for all the beings and solidarity are in the centre of any relation.We start from the concern about the current rhythms of life and consumption and agree with the idea that this kind of society invest more in material things than in people needs. Our proposal is to start thinking about what if we change paradigm and bet for simple living as an alternative for personal and social development instead of keep feeding the system as it is now. We do believe the power of small actions, and the need of promoting entrepreneurial spirit among young people, as the main stakeholder in the future legacy.Finally, the only way we know to make the previous come true is through education, so this is a chance to come, learn and share!We are planning to provide a training course to explore the idea of decreasing the environmental costs of our activities and growing in social relations, mutual learning and happiness. The place to develop it is Medinaceli (Soria), a small village in central Spain placed 150km far from Madrid. It's a natural and cultural priviledge place where the landscape will be our ally to get inspired.During one week ( 28th September - 5th October), and using non formal education methods based on community building and open air activities we will prepare the arena for a rich exchange of ideas, practises and living examples of alternative approaches to work, life and education. It will be, more than anything else, an experiential learning project, where participants will be able to live in a community based group, using local resources and lightweight lifestyles.Some of the activities planned are: walking in the nature, sustainability workshops, bioclimatic construction workshops, community learning and council, among others.The target group includes 28 participants among Youth workers, Trainers, Youth leaders, Youth Policy Makers, Volunteers, anybody who is interested in the topic and find it useful for personal and professional development.With this project we aim to raise awareness on some of the main aspects of the continuing changing society, give tools to the participants to self develop their sense of initiative, and enhance the networking process.The potential benefits of this action will rely on the capacity of the paticipants to put in practise and multiply the contents of the course once back home, and also the power of networking between the organizatoins envolved.

The project SEEDling: rethinking Sustainability trough Environmental EDucation has been a training course on how to promote social entrpreneurship among young people and who work with them, starting from the local ressources.The aim was to improve the capacity of bringing the ideas to reality through a project.Starting from the concern of the necessary change of paradigm in the entrepreneurship world, to be more inclusive with people interested in social and environmental issues, we wgave tools to the participants to start their own projects.We do believe in the power of small actions, and the need of promoting entrepreneurial spirit among young people, as the main stakeholder in the future legacy.Finally, the only way we know to make the previous come true is through education, so this was a chance to come, learn and share.The place where it was implemented is Medinaceli (Soria), a small village in central Spain placed 150km far from Madrid. It's a natural and cultural priviledge place where the landscape will be our ally to get inspired.During one week ( 19th -24th September), and using non formal education methods based on community building and open air activities we prepared the arena for a rich exchange of ideas, practises and living examples of alternative approaches to work, life and education. It was, more than anything else, an experiential learning project, where participants were able to live in a community based group, using local resources and lightweight lifestyles.We explored the idea of decreasing the environmental costs of our activities and growing in social relations, mutual learning and happiness. Some of the activities planned were: walking in the nature, entrepreneurship workshops, coaching, community learning and council, among others.The target group included 28 participants among Youth workers, Trainers, Youth leaders, Youth Policy Makers, Volunteers, anybody who could be interested in the topic and find it useful for personal and professional development.With this project we aimed to raise awareness on some of the main aspects of the continuing changing society, give tools to the participants to self develop their sense of initiative, and enhance the networking process.The benefits of this action rely on the capacity of the paticipants to put in practise and multiply the contents of the course once back home, and also the power of networking between the organizatoins involved.

"In today's world of fast food and prepackaged meals, it is often difficult to stay on the “straight and narrow” when it comes to healthy eating. To help keep youngsters on the right path to a healthy lifestyle we organized the Youth Exchange ""Live Long and Prosper"" that will took place in Blansko, Czech Republic from 01.12 to 10.12. 2015 and joined together 33 young people from Czech Republic, Macedonia, Turkey, Hungary and Slovenia. We did this project to reach the main aim which was: improving the lifestyle of young people in the partner countries through: eating healthy organic food, exercising, doing yoga and meditation and living in harmony with nature. During this exchange we focused on creating a friendly, relaxed non-formal atmosphere in which participants felt free to learn and share their experience, developed their ideas together with the rest of the participants. We believe the topic of healthy lifestyle and of a healthy environment is really important especially for youngsters in development and it is much better to learn about it from each other as they had the chance on the youth exchange through different types of activities that we had organized.The activities were based on non-formal education and focused on active participation, team work, stimulating creativity and getting new knowledge and skills. We used methods and activities such as: ice-breaking games, name games, getting to know each other and team building games, energizers, group presentations, work in groups, facilitated discussions, exercise, outdoor activities, audio and visual methods etc. The schedule of the activities was structured in a way that the participants explored different topics every day (food, exercise, yoga and meditation and environment) and as we went through the days and the topics we got to the conclusion that everything is connected, that by practicing a healthy lifestyle in the same time you are practicing living in harmony with nature. Overall the expected impact was achieved to raise the awareness about the health and the environment so the participants form now on can make changes in their daily habits.The main result of the project was the creation of a booklet that promotes healthy lifestyle, that we published and shared among the partner organizations, for the other youth workers to use in their future projects."