Twelve fire brigade cadet leaders along with three group coordinators from the Varaždin County Fire Brigades Association departed on 18th July 2015 in order to participate in third youth exchange organized by PGD Šinkov Turn from Slovenia, financed by Slovenian national agency MOVIT according to ERASMUS+ programme, named “Competence Achieved by coMradeship and Participation 15” (CAMP 15). Third party of this youth exchange was a Cyprian organisation ESFC (European Social Forum of Cyprus), so this exchange got a completely new dimension, making difference to previous ones (FYM 2012, GORA) when only members of Slovenian and Croatian fire brigades took part.
Team from the Varaždin County Fire Brigades Association uppon arrival to Gozd Martuljek
(from left to right, 1st row –Josip Cingesar, Marinela Belavić, Nikolina Sever, Petra Kraš, Sara Galić,
Ivan Ratković, Zvonko Videc; 2nd row – Antonio Kovaček, Dalibor Pintarić, Alen Jakopec, Emanuel Kralj,
Marina Gregur, Tamara Kanjir, Monika Kočet, Nikolina Pantaler)
Uppon arrival to Gozd Martuljek, situated between mountain massif Karavanke and Julian Alps, not far from much more known Kranjska Gora, youth leaders from Donja Voća, Ivanec, Salinovec, Varaždinske Toplice and Sveti Đurđ descried an area where new experiences in youth work will be gained in the next eight days along with Slovenian and Cyprian colleagues. Before getting into rooms and starting a programme, a visit to river Sava Dolinka was organized, seeing one among two rivers that join together near place named Lancovo and form second largest Croatian river which runs close to their „home“, and flows from a little lake in Zelenci Nature Park (rises a bit farther, at Nadiža spring near Planica where it quickly dives and reappears again right in this nature park) and served as a refreshment with its 10 degrees Celsius after ride for more than 300 kilometres from Varaždin.
Around 40 participants of this exchange took eight days to learn about culture, history and democracy in participants countries, ways of communication among people and on various levels, about ways of learning, using experience exchange, various verbal and phisycal workshops as well as debates ran by youngsters. Workshops about democracy and communication were prepaired by Cyprian team. Beside that, national evenings were organized, where participants showed their culinary skills prepairing traditional dishes from their region and presented their homeland to othe others in a specific way. While Croats presented some less known facts related to towns and areas on a territory of Republic of Croatia by drawing and sticking photographs on big blank map, youngsters from Cyprus used a video material to tell a story about their homeland. Slovenian colleagues used a bit upside down approach and used an interesting quiz to check our knowledge about their homeland. Search for a hidden treasure around Bled lake was organized as well by host team, followed by water games organized by Croatian team.
Sight during search for a hidden treasure
One among water games – communication and orientation materred the most
A visit to Protection and rescue educational centre in Ig near Ljubljana was organized as well, than a visit to Slovenian capital by boat on Ljubljanica river and hike through town streets, as well as a visit to Vodice municipality and PGD Šinkov Turn where some activities were performed in relation to people assistance in a community. One group visited a nearby voluntary fire brigades, PGD Gozd Martuljek and PGD Kranjska Gora as a part of one workshop and presented informations about their work to the others afterwards.
Workshop in PGD Gozd Martuljek
An addition, one workshop was organized near globaly famous ski flying facility Planica, where competitors do not jump but gain world records in ski flights. Participants had an opportunity to be introduced with this sport complex, while young ski jumpers displayed a part of atmosphere at their competition, as they performed their summer training session.
Group photo at the landing spot – Planica
During exchange, previously gained friendships were strenghtened, while some new friensdships were made, as well as collaboration among organisations that will serve for some future joint projects, candidated to national agencies that run EU projects for education, youth and sport like ERASMUS+.
One among last photographs from this years exchange
After final workshop, farewell was tough as allways, so a group took some additional joint moments on their ride to Ljubljana, and Croatian team made a stop to taste well known doughnut in Trojane.
More about youth exchange can be found at http://www.pgdsinkovturn.si/camp-15/, while a translation into Croatian is located here.
Once again, „hvala lepa vsem udeležencem CAMP-a“ or „ευχαριστώ“ [efharisto] for all experiences shared and nice moments accomplished in Gozd Martuljek.
Text and photographs:
Josip Cingesar, Marinela Belavić, Zvonko Videc