In Hrodna

But my visit to Hrodna turned out to be nothing like a business trip.

Hrodna - Landmarks

Hrodna - Streets

For the time of the training course I managed to visit a disco, get very little sleep, get a personal excursion of Hrodna, get to know the organizational culture of the "Third Sector" a little (very pleasant young journalists), try real blackberry jam and hitchhike to Minsk.

Travel

School of educators

I spent the weekend in Hrodna at a training for leaders of educational circles, organized by the Organization of Civil Education.

They have an idea to integrate an interesting form of non-formal education for adults - educational circles. This form was borrowed from Sweden, where these circles are popular. The idea is to research a certain theme over a number of meetings (5-15 about 3 hours each) in a direction the group is interested in. The group is up to 12 participants, from which everyone is making an input to the learning process. And all this based on the principles of non-formal education.

The training was the first part of a large project. It was just to investigate the concept of the circle. Next we'll have a thematic seminar (6 different themes in different cities across Belarus) and a methodological, after which we'll be able to organize our own learning circle.



I can't really say how effective this form is in this concrete context. Guess time will tell.

A word on the photos

Before my departure from Latvia my dad gave me his camera. Which came kind of handy - I stuck to a schedule of 3 photos a day for a month. And I don't think I'm still behind it.
My photos, after some tweaking and editing, make it to the internet. I use Picasa Web Albums as a host and divide my photos in a few main albums, which I update on a regular basis.
Captions mainly in russian, sorry (untranslatable play on words, some realities, which I can't find a synonym to and so on).
Here they are:

Belarus - Impressions

My impressions collected all over Belarus. Things which mean something to me personally (and often only to me personally).

Belrad

From my apartment in Belrad - an institute of radiation protection.

Peculiar

Things I find funny, peculiar or just plain interesting for the major public.

Minsk - Streets

More usual things I see in the streets.

Minsk - Landmarks

Photos of famous sites, monuments or other objects of historical or cultural value.

Fialta

Photos connected with my hosting organization Fialta.

Belarus - Travel

Photos from my travels in Belarus. Yet to come. ;)

Occasionally I make albums dedicated to a single event, like Zubrenok or Minsk Boulderfest, which are available in my public photos.

RUSH Boulderfest 2009

On the weekend I took part in Minsk boulderfest RUSH 2009 (bouldering is a kind of rock-climbing on low rocks without safety equipment).
The competition was held all day Saturday (qualification) and Sunday (finals). There were reporters, television and stuff.
Qualification was divided into 3 sets 3 hours long each. With 25 routes and long queues. 5 routes for the finals and one super-hard route for anyone interested with a separate prize.
Altogether there were 182 climbers of different ages from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus. And one baltic-latvian-EU-representative. Guess who.

"And where's my flag?"

Even the competitions in climbing have a special atmosphere. It's not a competition between people, but more of a struggle with your own self. This produces respect and understanding which you feel in the mood and attitudes.


After the qualifications we had an afterparty with a free well-deserved pint of beer for every climber.

The finals were a different kind of spectacle. Both mens' and womens'. When you understand how much strength and time these people gave to climb like that, you can't ignore a feeling of great respect.

A guy from Kiev won mens' competition.

From Minsk - RUSH Boulderfest 2009

It felt like he did not compete, nor follow the results, nor count the points for different routes, but he just climbed everything he could. No emotions, calmly and precisely he climbed all 25 qualification routes, all 5 final routes and the super-hard route as well. A machine, not a human.

Anyway, I got great pleasure from climbing, it's not like anything else. Besides I met new and interesting people and even made it onto television.

My photos

Links:
Organizers' photos (club Han Tengri) - qualifications

Organizers' photos - finals

Results

An article on tut.by (belarussian news portal)

And video from ONT channel:

A visit to "Zubrenok"

On Sunday I didn't pass an opportunity to visit the most popular children camp in Belarus - "Zubrenok".
Camp administration invited different youth organizations to do small master-classes, present themselves and discuss further partnership.



The camp is situated on the bank of Naroch, the biggest lake in Belarus. Whole year through the camp takes in children of different ages for health and vacation programs.

They say the camp wasn't very good till some time ago, but improved much during last few years it was thoroughly renovated. Looks very appealing, 4 beds in a room, computer classes and stuff.

The atmosphere is very "campish". When entering a room children greet you on count of 3-4 with a loud "Good day!" all together.
Children are all smart and intelligent (the stay at camp is not a cheap one, 990 000 belarussian rubles for a summer session). The timetable is quite full, there's a lot of different activities, which makes children want a rest back home after such a surge of information and impressions. The camp serviced 13 600 children in 2008 or 167160 children-days.

We made a few simple getting-to-know and team-building exercises with the children, made a small reflection, as much as it was possible, and went on to the round table to meet the administration.
There were representatives of big youth organizations - pioneers, union of youth, the scouts, the guides, Association of UNESCO clubs, League of Youth Voluntary Service, Fialta (our organization) and others.
Mainly we discussed partnership possibilities with the camp, organization of some activities, inviting of volunteers and such.

After the round table we had an opportunity to present our organizations to the wide camp audience. Children were listening and asking questions, which is peculiar. I wouldn't sit through half the presentations in their age.

And that was the end of our visit, which overall left strong impressions.
Children walking in pairs with camp leaders, waking up and doing things strictly on schedule, greeting guests with a common yell, discipline, solitude...
Well yeah, "Land of Childhood", why not?

Qualification

I spent the most of today at a training course, learning how to improve quality of projects, supported by the CCF (Christian Children's Fund, as I understand one of a few foundations represented to Belarus).



I've had experience with "Youth in Action" as a project coordinator and this is a completely different experience for me. More strict, more to the lines and more... Sysytematic, I guess. They don't think about European dimensions, but they go for what Services which Clients receive, they have Indicators of reaching objectives which have Numbers. Which must have Numbers - the only way you can measure and monitor is through numbers...

I was sitting there like a happy piglet with a bag of balloons - at last something systematic! Someone really analyzes numbers and finds calculable criteria! It's exactly what my built-for-maths-and-systems brain can handle and work with!

But... Giving it some thought, there is something missing there. Exactly what was missing in the IT sphere - attitudes or values. Something that you can't measure, but really miss when it's not there.

When I write to YiA I talk about how I work, my approach and understanding.
When I write to CCF I talk about what I'll do and when, what results I'll have.
That's the difference I see right now.

Birthday

Yesterday Fialta has officially gone a 14 year old teenager.

Only senior members, who know the organisation for some years, remember Fialta's founders. So everyone is sitting quietly listening to great stories.
And watching presentations.

Story of a city (ru)

Fialta's citizens (ru)

The photos are 3 to 14 years old.

Euro<26, mentorship and the market

On Monday I got my special Euro<26 card.









We had a laugh that it is kind of worthless in Belarus, but still Europe remembers and takes care of me.







Then I found this:



http://euro26.by/
Not that bad - I still have 3 places that take the card.

Things are going a bit slow right now, which gives me some time to get used to the city, feel at home, get used to buying food and cooking by myself.

From Minsk - Impressions

Had a first meeting with my mentor and a separate meeting with the EVS project coordinator and Fialta's executive director. I see them every other day, but this time we closely went through my expectations and composed a plan for future doings.
Looks promising.

It's kind of hard to find good vegetables in supermarkets. In open markets on the other hand its a lot better, but... They don't give receipts at the market. It means I can't report to the National Agency about what I bought at the market. We're clarifying the financial report scheme with the Agency, maybe it's not that bad? But for now I collect receipts for every single thing I consume.

First work

On Sunday I had first working experience with local youngsters. There's a problem about participant shortage, the same as in Latvia.

We had youngsters from orphanages (for children and young people), who were a very interesting group. In theory I know that a group with developed relationships is hard to work with in the beginning, but it didn't seem that bad.

Meeting

The event was for 3 hours, in which we gave them different tasks and a little competition.

We didn't expect to get much output from them, but nonetheless some of their conclusions were quite interesting.

First impressions from the other side

Well... I'm getting to know Belarus step by step. Can't say that I understand every detail, but already I think I won't get lost.

From Minsk - Landmarks

I live in a room in a cottage on the outskirts of Minsk. It's a very good place, though the shower is on the floor and there's a common kitchen. The room itself is big and cosy.

From Minsk - Belrad

From Minsk - Belrad

As I understand there's no such thing as unlimited internet in Belarus. Traffic counts, so I use it from time to time from the office.

From Minsk - People

The country has a peculiar feeling about it. Comparing to Riga there's some kind of a spirit of a common ideology. There's lots of social ads in the streets, people address each other respectfully, they use father's names (which in Latvia we don't use at all), there are slogans from the soviet times in the streets.

From Minsk - Landmarks

From Minsk - Landmarks

From Minsk - Landmarks

It may seem strange but the main language in Belarus is russian. Belarussian was pushed away during political processes. And now there's even a whole lot of youngsters born in Belarus who don't speak the language. Which is a shame - it's a very pleasant and interesting language.

I use city transport a lot. There are all kinds of ground transport in Minsk and also two branches of the underground railway (called metro in slavic countries). The transport fees are a lot lower than european or even latvian.

Food costs on the other hand are quite like home, though the price-tags look confusing - 1 lat is around 5000 belarussian roubles, which is about 1.4 euro. So spending 15 000 on groceries is quite ok. Also there are no coins, only paper.

I didn't quite get to my duties yet, but already have some idea of what I can and should be doing. :) We'll see how it turns out.