Fifth Mobility: Stockholm!
From the 15th to the 18th of October 2024, the SPGs project held its fifth international youth mobility event - this time in Sweden's beautiful capital, Stockholm. The partner organisations, especially our Romanian Partners Polylogos, put all their efforts into organising and hosting this very special mobility towards the end of the project. There were about 70 international youth and their youth workers joining us from Italy (Agorà), Romania (Polylogos), France (Théâtre de l'Opprimé), and Portugal (CAI).
What a wonderful, rewarding experience!
The first day started off with the whole group meeting at the Romanian Cultural Institute, who hosted us so generously in their premises in the centre of Stockholm. We had a very special event waiting for us, as the Ambassador of Romania to the Kingdom of Sweden, Daniel Ionita, gave us the honour of visiting us and held an inspiring speech about youth involvement, pursuing dreams, and the importance of being an informed person. Our youth also had the unique opportunity to ask questions to the ambassador and find out more about his career and job.
As a second part during this morning, our colleagues from the Théâtre de l'Opprimé worked with the youth group and used their excellent theatre techniques for ice braking activities with the youth, preparing them for thoughtful activities centreing around the SGDs.
In the afternoon of the first day, we visited Fryshuset, a huge and interesting youth center in Stockholm. We were warmly welcomed there by international volunteers from the Ukraine, who did a wonderful job leading us through the afternoon: our group received guided tours through the youth centre, participated in a climate activity workshop, and got the chance to find out more about the European Solidarity Corps and other opportunities for young Europeans. We were truly impressed by the facilities, activities, and spaces that this amazing youth centre offers!
On day two, we returned to the Romanian Cultural Institute for more activities: a review and feedback session in which the youth participants had the chance to express their thought about the SPGs project and talk about their experiences. We heard a lot of inspiring stories about personal growth, overcoming fears, positive outlooks on the future, and the strong desire to participate in more projects like this.
The second main event this morning was a Forum Theatre workshop, where the youth got to develop a better understanding for each other and then participated in two SDG relevant theatre acts, one about gender identity and one about climate change. This was an opportunity for the youth participants to open their eyes and minds to new ideas and points of view. It was wonderful to see that language barriers and other obstacles were basically non existant in this amazing, very mixed and diverse group and everybody felt at ease and happy to take part in the activities!
In the afternoon, our youth and their accompanying youth workers had the chance to see more of Stockholm in a guided tour around the old town. After some free time, the groups met again for a final dinner together.
What an inspiring and successful youth mobility!
The positive feedback we received from our participating youth was very encouraging and showed us that projects and events like this can have a true impact in the real world. We will continue our work and hope to inspire more youth to participate and find out more about who they are and who they want to be in a Europe that belongs to all of us.
A big thanks to everyone who made this possible!
