Survival KIT

On the weekend of 14th to 15th of November, the fourth international training Survival Kit vol.4 took place in Lithuania. This event was held in Vilnius, by ESN ISM. During this event we gathered more than 60 people, including participants, ESN Lithuania NB members and international trainers. In the course of two days we had two training tracks – one for newbies, one for advanced learners.
Newbies workshops was held by Kacper Olczyk and Lerio Cunha. In Kacper’s training course ESN newbies were learning about successful promotion of events and  what is the best way to master the art of a perfect promotion. Lerio was teaching  volunteers the art of public speech and how to learn to trust yourself and another person during teamwork workshops.
Advanced track was held by Carlos Guillermot and Piero Gentilini – they formed one amazing cooperation and led their course as a team. Another advanced workshop was held by Mikas Macijauskas.
Carlos’s and Piero’s training was focused on improving skills of time management in order to increase one’s working abilities and possibilities. Also, another workshop was held about motivation was based on self-motivation and teaching leaders to bring  motivation to sections in everyday ESN’ers life situations.
Mikas held a training about visual communication skills, simple rules of  logo or  banner creation and simply how to communicate with ESN world using just visual material.
Every day after training sessions teambuilding games were held. They helped to know more about yourself and your fellow ESN’ers. ESN Lithuania can proudly say, that during this weekend a lot of ESN’ers believed that things might not be as hard as they first seem to be and that learning together -from each other- is one of the best ways to learn something new and usefully integrate it into their lives.

On 25^th-26^th April ESN Lithuania newbies as well as advanced members enjoyed the sunny spring weather while participating in the national trainings called “Survival KIT Vol.3”. It was organized by the ESN KK and HR Committee and held in Kaunas kolegija/University of Applied Sciences.  

We are glad to announce that productive and interactive workshop sessions were conducted by even four ESN international guests who shared their knowledge and experience on leadership, motivation, interculturalism, and creativity. We were excited to welcome IB-elect Communication Manager Gaffar Rampage (ESN Communication Committee, ESN The Netherlands) participating in the 2^nd ESN Lithuania national event. He was a facilitator who gave a short theoretical presentation on communication, its means, purpose, and types. Having gone through that, ESN members had an opportunity to apply the theory into practice. Thus, the specific skills and knowledge were gained through the interactive activities.

Another facilitator Kenny Ho from ESN Ireland shared his experience of five years volunteering with the advanced level members. We held a discussion about self-development taking into consideration our success and failures, strengths and fears. Also, we tried to figure out how to motivate ourselves and others, how to avoid or solve various problems within the local as well as national levels. In addition to that, another workshop provided by Kenny was about job interviews and filling in CV. He engaged students in some discussions and activities that lead to a better understanding how to succeed in applying for a job.

Other two guests, Magda Jarmołowicz from ESN Poland and Thibault Pean from ESN France, were facilitators for the newbies. They dealt with the relevant issues like motivation, interculturalism, and creativity. Magda went deeper into the ESN as a non-profit association that provides plenty of opportunities and volunteering benefits. Also, members participating in her workshop analysed some situations and tried to find the means for enhancing motivation. Thibault emphasised significance of the topics about people differences and stereotypes of cultures. Engaging in creative activities, students made themselves sure once again that we should not judge a book by its cover. We should pay more attention to people’s characters and personalities and should not form an opinion about them from their sexual, religious, or political orientation.

Having worked a lot, students had fun responsibly at the “Responsible Party”. The members who took part in the trainings received a certificate and gained valuable experience which hopefully will be spread throughout the ESN Lithuania sections. The newbies and advanced members improved their knowledge on different topics and they were greatly empowered to seek for more.

Find the picture gallery on Facebook.

Written by Evelina Doftartaitė, PuRe Committee

Over the weekend of 12-13th of April, delegates from all 12 ESN Lithuania sections, as well as representatives from ESN Alumni, gathered within the welcoming walls of Mykolas Romeris University in the capital Vilnius to attend already the second edition of ESN Lithuania’s National training programme – Survival KIT Vol. 2.

ESN is all about improving, motivating and aiming higher. That is why the second piece of training cake had to be bigger, better and with an international taste. ESN Lithuania HRC Tomas, who was nurturing the idea of National trainings for quite some time, remarks: “I was very happy to see such activeness among the sections: the number of applicants was increasing each day and every spot was taken”. Four ESN Eduk8 trainers from Austria, Switzerland, Poland and Czech Republic shared their knowledge on time planning, leadership, constructive feedback and conflict management. Let’s take a short look back over the things that inspired members of ESN Lithuania this past weekend.

Day 1, Saturday

After a short opening word, trainers took the initiative into their hands leading a series of vibrant and dynamic energizers and teambuilding activities that allowed us learn a thing or two about each other and feel more comfortable working together. Later on, for workshops to be more effective and productive, participants were divided into three smaller teams and from that very moment members of ESN Lithuania are better known as cherries, strawberries and watermelons. Three out of four fields were covered during the first day of trainings, involving a lot of practical assignments, role playing and discussion.

In leadership and time planning workshop, instructed by Ludo “the Lazy Lizard” Coudray from ESN Switzerland, participants learned how to recognize different types of leaders, what strategies to apply in order to ensure effective section-work and progress; how to prioritize and plan your schedule. Communication expert Robert Banet from ESN Poland performed valuable workshop on delivering and receiving constructive feedback, which is an essential part in maintaining an operative ESN work from local to international levels. Members were taught some methods of positively delivering criticism. At the end, everyone were only left craving for more.

The day was not over yet as OC from Mykolas Romeris University had prepared a challenging surprise. ESN’ers and trainers participated in a scavenger hunt and discovered the secrets of Vilnius. Afterwards everyone met up to have some refreshments.

Day 2, Sunday

Starting off the last day with some powerful energizers, participants headed to their last workshops. Working side by side, Lukas Oppermann from ESN Austria and Stanislav Stanek from ESN Czech Republic delivered crucially beneficial session on conflict management. Before starting, participants were asked to share their expectations on the upcoming workshop. Two hours of strategic actions, performances and analysis of real-life conflict situations both in daily and ESN life caused great discussions in the room. For most, expectations raised at the beginning were fulfilled or even exceeded as from now on everyone will keep in mind that avoiding conflicts is not an option.

It did not take long for the trainings to prove being worthy as towards the end of day 2, motivated, eager and fruitful with fresh ideas, ESNers brainstormed about the future projects of ESN Lithuania. Hoping that planted ideas will soon harvest into prosperous and large projects participants reviewed this notably productive weekend after which Eduk8 trainer Stanislav Stanek had this to say: “It was very inspiring to see how motivated the participants are after the Survival Kit training. As a trainer it is a best reward you can get. I hope that we encouraged them to be hungry for new knowledge and they will spread their enthusiasm in every section!”

And spread they will. There are already some new ideas pursued throughout the network. It is safe to say that everyone left with bigger baggage than they came with: knowledge of new fields, motivation, inspiration and promising new acquaintances once again ignited the spirit of ESN!

Huge thanks on behalf of ESN Lithuania to Živilė and the whole MRU team who courageously stepped up in organizing and hosting the Survival KIT Vol.2 National trainings!

P.S. People say, all of them took a good selfie...

by Karolis Kriuka, proud member of ESN LT PuRe Committee, [email protected]

Human Resources Coordinator of ESN Lithuania invited everyone capable to create a logo for national project – ESN LT Survival Kit No.2!

Event aims to empower members of ESN Lithuania to allow them to perform better in their ESN daily tasks. Trainings will be provided by national and EduK8 trainers, so proper visibility is essential to ensure deserved attention of members of ESN LT. That is why we need your help!

Visibility of your name and kind comments full of amazement are not only prizes we have prepared for you. We have more:

Ist place – ESN LT thermo cup;
IInd place – ESN LT baggage lock;
IIIrd place – luggage card.

Requirements: Actually only one - ESN colors must be included.

Deadline: 4th of February, 2014.

Send your logo to [email protected] and see it being announced on ESN Lithuania Facebook Page on 5th of February. Winner will be elected by our followers by the amount of likes.

Good luck!

Last weekend, on the 6th of April National training of ESN Lithuania was held in Kaunas Univeristy of Applied Sciences with the help of ESN KK - ESN Lithuania section which voluntarily organized the event with the support of their international office. 
 
One of ESN visions is to provide quality training for all ESN members. This time ESN Lithuania tried to fulfill that by organizing one day event. From early Saturday current president of JCI (Junior Chamber  International) Kaunas and coaching trainer Patrikas Pilybas started their workshop for cooperation strengthening and teamwork. Justina Pluktaitė from VGTU (Vilnius  Gediminas technical university) International Office provided all ESN members with ideas howto recruit new members for the network, develop new ways how to contribute better for them, how to integrate into ESN activities incoming and outgoing Lithuanian students. Representatives of ESN LT Alumni were telling about the history of ESN LT and later organized a game which managed to reveal different capabilities of participators. At the end of the day two workshops were held by ESN Athens past section president Stefanos Antypas – ESN Job or Fun. Tomas Tamulevičius has shared his Eduk8 experience during the workshop for Communication and Teamwork. 
 
Even the official part of the event took only one day but therefore an additional program was organized – attendants of training were invited to visit the Museum of War, located in the very heart of Kaunas.
 
Later on reviews about the event have appeared. For example Stefanos Antypas was telling us that „after two and a half months spent in Lithuania, and after I’ve already proved everyone that I am a crazy Greek who under no circumstances cannot be taken seriously, the kindness of ESN Lithuania shows no boundaries, since they invite me for a second time to attend one more of their national meetings. The first one was nothing else than their National Platform and the second one was the ESN LT Survival Kit.  

I arrived at Kauno Kolegija at 14:00 o’clock. Even though the training was going on from early morning, instead of finding a group of tired, hungry people, I was welcomed by smiling ESNrs who couldn’t wait to see the next presentation/workshop. My Lithuanian is not good, so I couldn’t understand what most of the presentations were about, but I could easily understand faces full of excitement, and laughs and jokes they were making all the time. So if this event was organized in order to strengthen the bonding between ESN sections in Lithuania, I think it got a ten out of ten.
 
Also I was happy to have participants in my workshop “ESN Job or Fun?, who with their motivated attitude and their fresh ideas managed to create four unique events in less than forty five minutes. 
 
 All the event was abound in positiveness and excitement. I am grateful that I got the chance to participate in this training and I am looking forward for the next ESN Lithuania event. I believe that they have a bright future in front of them. But then again, what does a crazy Greek know“.
 
ESN Lithuania wants to thank Modesta, Audre, all the ESN KK and Kaunas Univeristy of Applied Sciences International Office, Tomas and for others who helped to organize this event! Your effort and will always remain in the hearts of ESNers.