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The power of TransformAction - European School 1 in Riga

2010-02-02
The European School 1 in Riga opened the doors of TransformAction for 23 motivated participants!

Riga, the city of inspiration, was waiting on the 7th January for 23 participants and 7 trainers coming from 20 AEGEE locals. Their mission was to experience the Intercultural TransformAction in youth work, but this could not have been accomplished without a very professional and competent team of local organizers. AEGEE-Riga successfully managed to organize this ES1 with a huge effort that showed their organizational management skills. They became a model to be followed by all of us, because of their tremendous dedication&commitment to the project since its very beginning back in July 2009. Thank you Evita and all your great team!

The cold (around -10º every day!) didn't lower the energy level of the participants, who got involved fastly and with tones of enthusiasm in the training dynamics: interactive sessions on hard and soft skills combined with the shortest and most intense casework ever in a ES1. But our motivated participants faced also the challenge of preparing and implementing a TransformAction day: they shared with students from "The Stockholm School of Economics in Latvia" their experience, ideas and passion towards youth work and AEGEE, and they even gave free AEGEE hugs to Latvian students!

In the preparation phase the staff team had already worked together to create a vision of this training, and during the ES1 our trainers walked as a authentic team towards one aim: to guide a new generation of AEGEE members in how to run a local. Furthermore, by building a working atmosphere of full support and contribution, the 7 of them (Arne, Hilde, Manos, Marino, Natalia, Patrick & Virginia) also dived into this ES1 as a learning process for themselves to grow as trainers. The co-managing relation between Patrick & Virginia turned out to be just excellent: a combination of mutual trust and constant backing; the balance between "creative idealism" and "professional planning and implementation."

A very attractive social program gave the group the chance to discover some aspects of Latvian culture: lots of fun and awesome moments in the ice-skating, city-rally, sauna party and many more parties organized by AEGEE-Riga. In the end, local organizers, participants and trainers really enjoyed this TransformAction, which will hopefully make a broad and positive impact in the future of our organization.

The European School 1 was organised by AEGEE Academy in cooperation with AEGEE Riga.

Many thanks to:
- Patrick Hanckmann, Virginia Paneda and the trainers' team
- Evita Meiere and the local organisers
- the participants

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