Carnaval de Nonformal adventure – Ewelina Wasacz

When I first thought of Carnaval de Nonformal the images of the Carnival in Rio de Janeiro flashed through my head and I almost started dancing samba but quickly enough I realised that first, I don’t know a single step, second, I’m not in Rio and third I need to urgently work on my vivid imagination.

At the time my knowledge of non-formal education methods was limited. T4UTH thought exactly the same and therefore sent me and others responsible for the festival for a 5 day training to make sure we were well prepared for the project. I studied non-formal methods so carefully and intensively during the day that I soon started dreaming about them during the night.  I got involved in all the tasks and listed to every single word of the trainer dozing off only a couple of times a day. Once the training was over I knew I was ready to face every challenge that was awaiting me before, during and after the festival. As for my method I chose to do Open Space Technology. It sounded weird and I liked that. I soon discovered that I could be super flexible with my part of the project and that made me even happier. I immediately knew that I would do yoga classes just to share my passion with others. Then I tried to encourage others to share their hobbies and whatever they loved doing in life with the local community in Baia Mare.

My OST dream team created variety of workshops: hip-hop dance, facepainting, clay modelling, theatre, and music. Working on the implementation of my method was fun and hard work at the same time.  I tried to always stay positive no matter how difficult or demanding my daily tasks were. The day of OST had a disastrous start but with the support of other volunteers and T4UTH staff we overcame all the obstacles and we did our best to make our classes as enjoyable as possible. Smile was the key! The workshops were run indoors in the morning and outdoors for the second half of the day.

I’m glad we decided to go out to people instead of waiting for them to come to us.  As for the first timers I think we succeeded both as the individuals and the team. There is obviously a place for improvement but I won’t list any mistakes here just not to spoil our achievement (we can discuss it privately ;).

I feel happy and accomplished and want to do more of those little things that I believe make the difference in the world. Big difference.

Ewelina Wasacz