We, Active Bulgarian Society, have always aimed to make our city a better place to live. We are interested in
creating outdoor activities to promote an active lifestyle, intercultural communication, and active participation in the local community. For this reason, our team is creating weekly outdoor events for last month – “Game o’clock”, ”Fair
play Football”, “Volleyball for all”, “Chat Club”, “Walking, Talking and Cleaning”.

The event “Game o’clock” is usually held every Tuesday.
During this event, we are playing different exciting games that are prepared by our team and usually 4 games each time. Some of the games are team games and the rest are everyone against everyone. What makes this event amazing is that the games are always with different themes. Many new
people began attending this event and also we received a lot of positive feedback.

In our town, many youngsters play football and for this reason, we created ”Fair play Football”. With this event, our team has the goal to propose a different sports event for football lovers in our town. Every time the stadium is full of positive people ready to have some fun.

“Walking, Talking and Cleaning” was one of our biggest events that we had made during the previous month. We invited some local organizations to be our associate partners. The goal of the event was to clean one of the parks in our town. Also, to make new friends and communicate with them about the importance of our nature and other topics related to the topic of ecology. Related to this, our team prepared some posters with quotes on them and stuck them on the trees in the park. We believe that with the help of the posters, people will start thinking before throwing their rubbish in the park.

Would you like to know more about our activities? Follow our Facebook page. â›šď¸

Starting a group activity with an ice breaker is a very important first step. This helps in building confidence and familiarity between the participants so that everyone feels comfortable, and in a good mood to start the activities they’ll be doing.

To help, Rota Jovem has a suggestion. This game is called “The Line Up”, you’ll only need the people you’re working with.
The game consists of having the players form an orderly line according to predetermined criteria set by the facilitator (like height, hair length, eye color, etc.). The twist is that no form of discussion or verbal cues can be used in any way during the process of forming a line.
This icebreaker helps develop team collaboration and non-verbal communication, it can also provide a few laughs and smiles along the way. đŸ¤

Parcours Le Monde Ile-de-France was a sending organization for a youth exchange in Slovenia, using graffiti as a tool to develop creativity but also self-confidence: even if you do not know how to draw like an artist, you can dare to express yourself!

Such an outdoor activity is also a good way to overcome linguistic barriers, while letting the pencil speak for you.
All week long, the participants have discovered each other and themselves through creative activities while designing together a wall frieze in the village. By doing so, they also contributed to the beauty of the neighborhood. Knowing that you go home after the project, but you leave behind a graffiti that you made by yourself with the help of others is a nice emotion that nourishes the feeling of belonging to something greater / of contributing to the common venture.

Coming back to their local environment, our participants wanted to express their creativity everywhere, starting from Parcours le Monde’s office. â˜ş We keep the idea in mind…

Every summer YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders takes part in a project called “Back to Basics” in the Netherlands, from Cherry International Foundation. What makes it great is that the whole project and all the activities in it are created to make the participants learn through practice and action.

In particular, the participants have a lot of outdoor activities during the whole project where they learn how to cooperate and to achieving results all together after taking concrete actions and really going for their goals. Moreover, all this practice gives them the tools to experience a 3-4 days outdoor event all over the Netherlands.. during this outdoor experience everything depends on each team and on each member of the team; this makes it unforgettable and incredibly powerful in terms of learning for everyone.

Get yourself a ball, some papers and some crayons.. then the game is on!

When it comes to simple outdoor activities, all we need to do is to set up a suitable learning frame; the rest follows. Biking, walking, running, playing ball games, or even just laying in the grass – all these can turn into educational experiences with proper guidance and support.

But how do we create a tailor-made context?
That’s exactly what we are going to work on during the first training activity. Stay tuned for the dates! âš˝ď¸

“Inclusion for Healthy Generations’’ brings innovative character thanks to its network that includes organizations from different European countries with diverse profiles, in particular bringing added value by involving organizations focused on different kinds of sports, nutrition, and healthy lifestyle; organizations targeting youth, old people, unemployed/ disadvantaged people, refugees – this will support the creation of a creative information campaign.
Link to the official page: https://www.facebook.com/Inclusion-for-Healthy-Generations-Erasmus-Sport-102624841354766/about/?ref=page_internal
Latest local outdoor events organized: https://www.facebook.com/events/277456373497606/ and https://www.facebook.com/events/1034424966955606/

“If you want the rainbow, you have to put up with the rain.” 🌈🌈 That’s why despite the rain in Blagoevgrad, Active Bulgarian Society still managed to carry out the volleyball event. 🤾‍♀️🤾‍♂️
A lot of brave people joined and luck was on our side as well, as the rain stopped just before the beginning of the event. Former Azerbaijani national volleyball team member and our current volunteer, Konul, showed her excellence in this game and carried her team to victory. 🏆🏆
It was a very exciting and fun game, if you are feeling jealous because you missed this event, don’t worry, there will be more events coming up and we will keep you updated.✌️✌️
“Volleyball for All” was part of a series under the project “Inclusion for Healthy Generations” funded by the Erasmus+ program.😊😊

Wednesday afternoon, a group of young people from Praxis Greece responded to the call of the club “O-Siris Orienteering Club” and participated in this very beautiful game: Orienteering! In Serres – Greece.

We love our city, we work together and we support the efforts of the associations as well. It was an action adapted to the limitations of the pandemic. Safe action orienteering.

We took the challenge of the “O-Siris Orienteering Club” invitation: “From the 11th to the 19th of May explore neighborhoods of Serres, anytime you want, with the help of the map we provide. We ask you to follow the purple route, to match the photos with the points of the map and write down the path of the point. We suggest that you print them so that you can write down what you will find. There is no time limit but if someone wants, they can time the effort”.

We walked through the neighborhoods of the city, studied the map, and spent a beautiful and creative afternoon!

It was a good opportunity for the general public to try orientation without the stress of timing and failure with extra educational value: our participants tested their orientation skills, played sports; they had fun, discovered places in our city that had been previously photographed by the organizers. They followed the instructions and rules of participation, regardless of age or physical condition, regardless of the specific time. There was a specific starter, holding the specific map in hand, they followed all the points of the route correctly, sent the required proofs based on the instructions, and enjoyed the experience!

First things first.

More than a month ago the first “Connectivity” meeting took place in Bergolo, Italy. While the weekend was hosted by YOBBO – Youth Beyond Borders, all the other partners were represented by some of their key staff members.

Besides spending a beautiful weekend between hills and vineyards, we managed to meet, catch up with each other and define the structure of the upcoming three years of our cooperation.

Events, meetings and trainings full of surprise – we are very much looking forward to all of these! đŸŒż What we know for sure though, is that our first training event will happen between the 24th and 29th of April 2020 in Ommen, the Netherlands.

Follow us for more information on how to join!