PASSION: Nature
"Enough. These few words are enough.
If not these words, this breath.
If not this breath, this sitting here.
This opening to the life
we have refused
again and again
until now.
Until now." David Whyte
Recently, in Europe most mental health problems are closely linked with social exclusion, loss of social contacts and sociability, as shown through an extensive analysis in research called The Effect of COVID-19 on Youth Mental Health. In this setting arises the need of strengthening the resilience and mental health of youth, as well as their social inclusion, especially for youth who are disadvantaged and hard to reach. This training course was created with the AIM to increase the capacity of youth workers to stimulate the inclusion and empowerment of disadvantaged young people (including youth with mental health issues), through nature based methods and activities. The project had one activity - professional development activity for the youth workers which took place in September 2022 in Floda, Gothenburg and gathered 36 participants, who are youth workers working with integration from 9 programme countries: Sweden, Romania, Hungary, Turkey, Greece, Poland, Slovakia, North Macedonia and Lithuania.
Booklet: https://bit.ly/42Vs1NI
Social media: bit.ly/3kFUlm7
Read more: erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/projects/search/details/2021-1-SE02-KA153-YOU-000009143
Participants say:
Greece:
"Our feelings when we arrived in Sweden were mixed. Enthusiasm, impatience, expectations and thirst for new experiences, new friendships ... new worlds. Since our first day in the project, we tried to relax, find ourselves and get to know our inner soul better in nature, out of our comfort zone. The whole week was an interaction with the elements of mother earth. We divided our mindset in four dimensions: North, South, East and West. Each dimension is different from the other ones, and you can reach it with a unique way of thinking. By meeting all your 4 dimensions, you can realize your inner peace, mindset and personality. Every day was colorful and every experience multidimensional, as coexistence with people from 7 countries was a hidden treasure and learning new cultures and traditions was a perfect gift for all of us. We are pretty sure that we will miss the place and the good time we spent together, but our memories will last forever. We are thankful for what we gained, for who we met. Thank you, Positive Youth NGO and Go Alive for making it happen!"
Ertugul. Turkey:
"The project was done in a place integrated with nature called Floda. Its subject was to create solutions for
disadvantaged individuals through nature and we started working for this. We started the activities by meditating on the first day of the project. These meditations, these were the exercises we did to find ourselves, to find the deficiencies in our own bodies and to repair these deficiencies. In the following days, we continued to increase the mediations. After each activity, we talked and shared with our friends. We shared how we felt in the posts. We took
walks alone in order to understand our own selves. I realised that you started to get to know myself. Dance activities were organised, we felt free and relaxed by just letting the notes of the music flow with the dance activities. We asked ourselves by asking ourselves. The questions actually revealed the true answers that lie within us. We shared the answers with each other, listened to each other and understood. The togetherness made us understand
that we are not alone. At the end of the project, I found answers to the questions that were
not revealed and I felt relieved.