Adventures and organizations!

About the DiGi2 joint staff training in Izmir

Ayo: Beginning of June- 3rd til the 7th, me and Ali flew out to Turkey, Izmir for a three day joint staff training with partnering organizations, for the DiGi 2.0 project! Hosting the JST were our partners Yasar University, and I want to point out just how impressive the campus was! They even gave us a private tour around the facility. During the INCREDIBLY HOT days we had the blessing of being inside the air conditioned meeting room, which, I think, was the saving grace of the whole trip. Those three days we discussed what’s been happening with the project, media materials partners have been working on,? and , most notably, the DiGi 2.0 website! We had the chance of collectively, in one room, talk about features we want implemented, changed or removed! I think that was a big boost of motivation and productivity. It’s always impressive how much could be done with everyone brainstorming in one room. The website will be officially launched soon with all the media materials on hand! You can keep up to date from the project’s FB or Insta page, which I’ll link here somewhere :p

You can also take a glimpse into the training in our pictures here!

About the ABLE Mentor season end – from Raya

Raya: This year I took part in two seasons of the ABLE Mentor programme and since the second one just ended in June, I wanted to share a quick look back and maybe encourage you to participate as well!

ABLE Mentor is a 3-month long individual mentorship program in which students in high school get a mentor with whom to develop a personal, social or business project. My first mentee – Emma, had an interest in EU-projects related to education and she is now our intern, and we love having her in TFN! My second mentee – Valya, just completed the program and I hope it’s true when she says she’s taking with her more confidence in her own decision-making abilities and in herself overall. Valya has also joined our youth group so she won’t get rid of my presence with the end of the program! :D

In case you’d like to be a mentor or mentee, I strongly recommend checking out the program and what it has to offer – the team is full of energy and enthusiasm, the organization is great, and you get to be a part of a wonderful community.

Check out ABLE Mentor over here: https://www.ablementor.bg/

About the Agora NextGen Joint staff training in Sofia – from Raya & Teo

Raya: This was our first time hosting a joint staff training in Sofia, and it was so exciting, full of energy, activities, productivity! We had the opportunity to show partners our first playable version of the Agora game, brainstorm together, suggest improvements and imagine the best-case scenarios and how we can achieve them. On the last day of the training, we made a trip to Koprivshtitsa, in which partners could get a different feeling of Bulgaria, visit ethnographic and historical museums, while still spending the afternoon working together, creating CoolCasts and brainstorming on next steps in our work. Spending time on the train and in the evenings and lunches team building really makes an impact on how we work together on creating these long-lasting and meaningful projects. Thank you to all participants, and I am looking forward to sharing with you all what we created in this training, and in this project as a whole!

Teo: I've been part of the Agora developoment for about 9 months (a pregnancy's worth of time) and during that time I've really enjoyed working with the team - Raya and Ali are good at giving me both direction and creative freedom; Nora, Georgi, Nick and I have a good sense of agreement on who's doing what. From the POV of an experienced game developer, the process is going as well as one can hope - we have a running game, we can edit it quickly, we have players to test it with! I'm really happy with the help received from partners as well - the content produced by them for Agora has already gone a long way towards shaping the game.

You can check out our reel to feel the spirit and the joy of the training here:? link to reel in IG

About Ayo having a birthday!

Our teammate Ayo had a birthday this month and we want to leave an important note, since he will be the one posting the newsletter as well!

Raya: Ayo, thank you for all your dedication, creativity, and joy you bring to TFN! Happy birthday one more time, more publicly this time! We wish you so much health, happiness, and amazing adventures, and we are excited to see your next TikTok creation! ?? ??

Ali: Happy birthday from me too Ayo :D. I’m really glad we had a lot of time on the working trips this month. I always admire how you carry yourself in the meetings and I’m proud you are part of TFN team in the meetings, trips and beyond! Wish you health and happiness! Looking forward to the many more creative endeavors and accomplishments in TFN! :D

About the HEY PEOPLE! storytelling workshop in Sofia – from Emma

Ali: On the 18th of June Raya and her guest - Joro Penchev hosted a storytelling workshop in Shtrak.? At the beginning Raya introduced the topic of gender stereotypes in social media, focusing on the effect they have on career paths. Afterwards, she shared with the group how to participate in the Hey People online challenge and how this workshop can be used to help us with the specific video creation.

The event circled around the impact a story can have on its listeners, going through every aspect- scientifically, emotionally, practically, and socially. After detailed explanation of every bullet point, Joro would give us a task to implement what we have learned and really stimulate our creativity.

After a few hours of thought-provoking discussions and deep analysis of the structure of a good story, the participants left with positive feedback and gained knowledge (and probably weight... the croissants were delicious).

You can follow along with the HEY PEOPLE! project in our social media profiles and also over here, as we will be organizing more events in the coming months: HEY PEOPLE!

About the EUJI Final meeting in Slovakia – from Ali

Ali: Back again in Trnava! It simultaneously feels that the Final Conference was a long time ago and quite recently. I was happy to see that the passion for the project was kept till the final meeting with the partners and our suggestions and actions for promoting the project past the official duration! Wrapping up, I can see even more how all the stories we collected, all the material we created, will be useful to a certain target group of young people and youth workers! Greetings from Slovakia and from the project consortium of ED, Scambieuropei, and yours truly, TFN.

You can take a look at all project materials in the website of the project here: https://www.euji.eu/en