Archive for the ‘Inside YouthNetworks’ Category

Since 2004 YouthNetworks provides services to make international youth work and communication easier and more efficient. The number of users of YouthNetworks has increased over the years. These users requested a more effective and modern community in order to keep the services up-to-date. After one year of dedicated and hard working we are proud to announce a new version of YouthNetworks! The new version will be launched at the end of the summer 2010.

 What has been improved?

• Possibility to add more information to promote your vacancies and events (photos/videos)
• Available EVS-vacancies are shown on Google Maps
• Efficient and effective communication between users (filter by country/type of organisation etc.)
• Improved search functionality
• Easy user interface
• Integration of social community tools like Twitter/blogs/YouTube
• Option to translate into your own language

The effectiveness of YouthNetworks largely depends on the quantity of users and the quality of their input. It would be great if you can help us test our new version of YouthNetworks. Are you interested? Please contact Robert Smit (robert@noborders.eu) for more information.

Do you want to share your experiences with us on our blog? YouthNetworks is looking for European youngsters who want to report about their EVS experiences or about their participation in a youth- related project, such as youth exchanges, training courses or other interesting youth projects! If you are interested to become a voluntary ’YouthNetworks reporter’, please contact us and we’ll set up an interview. Or write an experience report by yourself and sent it to anita@noborders.eu. Pictures and videos are also more than welcome!

Many people travel to London to do their Christmas shopping. They go to Harrods to buy toys, to Oxford Street for Christmas stockings and to Hyde Park for toffee apples. Not me. I travel to London to give trainings about YouthNetworks!

As I was walking towards the conference hotel, I saw the first snow of the winter falling upon the fashionable people that roam the streets of London, and thought about how happy I was with this job. Life’s good when you’re abroad and it’s snowing. I felt all Christmassy, and a bit lost, as I didn’t exactly know where the hotel was. But a few phone calls further I found it. Lights and trees and mistletoes guided me along the majestic stairway, as I was taking of my hat and gloves. I was right on time, grabbed some coffee and took a seat.
I have to say the crowd was a bit tough, and the presentation didn’t go exactly as planned, but luckily some people attending came up to me in the break to tell me they liked it. Thank God for confirmation!
I couldn’t beat the presentation of one of the others though. A woman from Liverpool told a very interesting story about her project: Merseyside Polonia. She did her best to show the good side of the Polish immigrants in her city, by organizing food festivals, get-togethers and talking to media. She really made a lot of effort, and put her heart into it, and all the participants loved her story. More information about her project can be found on http://merseysidepolonia.com.
When the training was over, I walked to Hyde Park, to the Winter Wonder Land. There was a Christmas market, an ice rink, some carnival rides and a singing moose with a German accent (see picture). Excellent!
Before I left for home in the night, I was invited to a Christmas Party by one of the participants. It was very nice: the British like to meet up with their friends and eat a lot of food before they go home to their parents to celebrate the holidays. The play weird games, put on festive slingers and have a laugh. It was very nice. But I had to go home at some point, so I said goodbye to the snow in London and went back to my own country, which ironically, was in total chaos from the big amount of snow there. Oh well, life is never as usual as you think it is. Now let’s go out and have a snowfight! Merry Christmas everyone!

Last week, YouthNetworks gave it’s first presentation in it’s home country, and it happened to take place in the city where our headquarters are located: Utrecht! There was a training by the NJI,  (Dutch Youth Institute) and people from all over the country came there to share information, network with each other and offcourse to learn from several workshops, where YouthNetworks was also represented in the workshop about Youth in Action & New Media.
If you would also like to implement the eMatchmaking training in your training or seminar, feel free to ask us any time!

My latest travel for spreading the word about YouthNetworks was to Austria. In the small village of Gresten in Niederösterreich, in a seminarhouse on a hill, I found around 25 people from all over Europe learning everything there is to learn about the Youth in Action programme and rural culture. I decided to teach them some more. In return, I learned to dance like an Austrian by clapping my hands on my legs and shouting ‘yeeee-hoo-hoo-hoo!’
Due to some technical problems, I had to skip my powerpoint presentation and explain everything with paper and a marker, but it worked out fine. The participants were happy with me, I was happy with the participants, and we had a lot of fun and talking. It’s funny how you meet so many interesting people, even in a place so remote as Gresten.
I would have loved to stay for the farewell party in the evening, but I had other plans: was visiting my old roommate from my time as an EVS-volunteer in Sweden, in Vienna. I consider her as one of my best friends, and I’m too happy to move to Vienna in February so I can see her a lot more often. I looked for a room, talked with my study adviser, walked through the whole city, practiced my German and made some new friends. I love Vienna.
Now I’m back to my life of studying, meetings, dentist appointments and late trains. Oh well. Luckily I have some new eMatchmaking trainings coming up the next months: in Utrecht, London and Oslo/Trondheim!

Before I start, please note: don’t try this at home! Taking the very first train to Germany, work all day and returning the same evening with the last train is very dangerous: it nearly exhausted me to death.

Yesterday, I gave my second eMatchmaking training about YouthNetworks. And my third and forth. I had to give three (!) trainings in a row in an international seminar in Bonn, Germany. It went quite well, actually. I got my message across, the participants were very eager to learn and there was a fun atmospeher (and very good cake!). There was, however, total chaos prior to my presentations, as my preperation had some flaws: I hadn’t asked for a computer with the newest version of Powerpoint, access to internet and Adobe Flash installed (for the brilliant animation by Roquefort). It took me over an hour to get everything right, and even then it wasn’t perfect: every 60 seconds a loud BEEEEP broke through my words (before I figured out I could turn the sound off, ofcourse). It was computer hell. Sometimes I wonder why I am giving these trainings about online YiA communities, when I know absolutely nothing about computers..

Anyway, thanks for inviting me, Germany! I am very very very sorry my preperation wasn’t as it was supposed to me, but luckily everything went very well, and I hope you are not angry with me for not asking for specific computer stuff (and if you are, pleased eat one of the stroopwafels I gave you: they’ll make you feel better). Wir sehen uns wieder!

I should have known it when I met the nun. She had just celebrated her 89^th birthday the day before with her niece, and didn’t know how to work her mobile phone. I had had a rough night: who knew Dusseldorf had two airports?  Murphy’s Law had made me very tired, but I managed to find the number she was looking for: ‘convent’. She told me she had kept her name from before she became a nun: Eileen. I said it was a pretty name. Eileen blessed me in the name of God.
But wait, there’s more