Rich in learning (III) – by Chloe Colinet de Labeau

At the beginning of July, we were for one week in a training called CONNECTOR, hosted in Bucharest. Each of us had to choose one different workshop, so I chose: HUMAN LIBRARY! We had three days for learning and understanding the method, two days to prepare the event and one day for presenting our work.

Initially, it was terribly difficult to understand, because I have medium level in English, but finally, after hard work and with the help of my colleagues, I realized what was HUMAN LIBRARY. It is a very interesting method, having the objectives to facilitate communication between different persons, to exchange ideas on various topics and also, to learn things that are interesting for you. The process is quite simple, we create a kind of library with two librarians: the first one is recording the books and the second one is returning them. The particularity of this workshop is that the books are human beings.

Let me explain, because it must be extremely strange for you: we choose particular people, for example an alcoholic, an orphan or a person living an EVS experience (like me). Each of them create a page with a title and a short summary about the story he/she wants to tell. Afterwards, all these page are presented to the readers that can choose the story they want to read/hear.

During the presentation, I was a book and I talked about my EVS experience.  It was incredible to be able to share my story to people that were really interesting in what I had to say. If you have the opportunity to discover HUMAN LIBRARY, go there, go and live this fabulous and unique experience!

In the middle of July we returned home: BAIA MARE! We had to prepare our next summer camp in Cerneşti, a village near Baia Mare, which is sublime. During the summer camp, we stayed in the house of the grandmother of a local volunteer. This woman had a huge heart, she was exceptional, I will never forget her.

The children were fantastic, we could do all activities we wanted! I really felt this summer camp as a holiday, I think I had as much fun as the kids!

Sometimes we meet people that we feel they change us, and this is exactly what I felt about this strong and exceptional woman. We were 7 volunteers doing activities for the children, we lived/worked all in harmony and we really did a great job!

This experience in Cerneşti, I could never forget it, it was magical!

SO JUST THANK YOU TEAM FOR YOUTH ASSOCIATION FOR THIS OPPORTUNITY!

Chloe Colinet de Labeau (France) is hosted in Baia Mare by Team for Youth Association, in the “Life Skills for Rural Education” project, a European Voluntary Service, financed by the European Commission, through the Erasmus Plus Program.