Although it‘s already spring time and you can see just cold and frozen things through the window, it‘s always possible to find some people who are moving, creating and keeping themself in action in order not to be frozen like that Lithuanian never-ending-winter, called spring. These always moving people can be easily found here – in ESN MRU Vilnius. Our section met spring with full month of activities, so we didn‘t have time to complain about cold temperature outside.
First days of spring were welcomed by City Quiz – orientation game in Vilnius city center. It took place during Casimir‘s fair, so it was like double celebration for our students. Even it was so so so cold outside and we don‘t remember if we have ever had such a freezing City Quiz, but all Erasmus students were still full of energy, positive mood and seeking to beat another competitors during the game. So in conclusion – even we had the coldest City Quiz ever, Erasmus students were so happy and excited that despite wind, snow and coldness everyone was talking what a great day they had! And it was just the begining of month...
On the same weekend we started Erasmus for Schools project in spring semester. During the March we already had two visits to lithuanian schools – in Telšiai and Kėdainiai. Erasmus students from Greece, Germany, South Korea, Turkey, Slovenia, France, Poland were theachers of subjects like history, language lessons, religion, ethics, biology, music. They represented history and traditions of their countries, explained differences between religions, teached some their national language sentences and even sang their national anthems together with lithuanian pupils. After lessons children said thank you with some really nice performances of dances and songs and later on all together with Erasmus students participated in Brain Battle game. Of course, children from schools were excited and admired by possibility to meet and know another cultures and foreign students, so all together they had some great conversations, got to know each other, made an excursions in their school towns and promised to come and show up in our another event Erasmus got talent in April.
And it‘s not the end! In the evening of International Women’s day our section organized one more funny and full of laughs matching event “Dare to date me”. Since the event was dedicated for International Women’s day, so the main idea was to let the girl to choose a boy for the date. Even it didn’t have the purpose to make a real couple, everyone had great time watching funny performances of competitors.
Later on one more weekend of March was filled with local ESN Olympics elimination and Mentor’s day events. We already chose our teams for ESN Olympics national tournament and next day all together we had great Mentor’s day, when our lovely Erasmus people said thank you to their helpful mentors and organized private evening at Universiteto pub with a lot of games, best wishes and nice performances.
To sum up, when you have so much things to do and always can enjoy your Erasmus friends and mentors company, there is no time to be sad about cold weather outside. Full of activities March just cheered up everyone and rumours are already about starting to organize big projects like Erasmus Got Talent, ESN Olympics national tournament, National Platform and many other smaller events, so it seems that we are going to continue our “be-always-in-action” tradition.
by ESN MRU Vilnius
Finally, it turned out that the benches were painted by volunteers from Erasmus Student Network Lithuania (ESN Lithuania): there were Lithuanians from Vilnius University, Vilnius Gediminas Technical University with the exchange program Erasmus students from USA, Croatia, Spain and Czech Republic as well as students of International School of Law and Business from India and Belarus. Many were surprised by the fact that students had no sponsors: all the money for benches renovation was gathered by previously mentioned high schools and University of Applied Social Sciences. The members of ESN in these institutions united to attain one goal: to motivate both Lithuanian and Erasmus students to collect white coins and prove that even students, who are just in the process of building their future careers, can be socially responsible. The members of ESN were happy with their job and emphasized, that it may only seem that it was very difficult to gather money for the renovation of 25 benches: a single white coin seems to be meaningless, but when people pool their coins, they unite and are able to make significant changes. The administration of “Vilnius Parks” were also pleased with students’ job and allowed ESN members to pain the logo of the organization on the renovated benches.
How you choose tales and actors?
In kindergarten and children hospital. But this year we also want to have one performance at Bernardinai Children centre (social center). Mentioned institutions are always waiting for us, welcomes us warmly - they have already seen previous performances and know how amazing this project is.
A cold morning of 14th of March brought together 7 foreigners who were ready to share their own culture, language and personal skills with Lithuanian youth who were eagerly waiting to meet new people . Starting the day by singing and asking each other in Lithuanian “Kaip gyveni” (HOW ARE YOU), and responding very positively with “gerai” (GOOD), made the journey be more warm, interesting and exciting. A short welcome speech by the school director Liudas Tauginas and teacher’s staff members, accompanied by a short informative presentation about the school and artistic performance prepared by school students made the international visitors feel more comfortable and relaxed. After a short introduction and meeting, it was the time for splitting in smaller groups and starting a short cultural journey through games, stories, and songs. Divided in three groups (two Russian and one German speaking group), students of “Akademija Gimnasium were able to meet closer and get familiar with the cultural differences and diversity over the world. A friendship that lasted nearly three hours, helped Lithuanian students understand better the value and importance of tolerance, cooperation, diversity which may be better gained through higher university education. After a joint lunch offered by the school, Erasmus students were guided through the Kėdainiai city by being introduced to some of the most important historical buildings, museums etc.
During autumn semester when this charity was organized for the first time students donated 130 Litas which was sent to Public institution “OFM MAŽESNIEJI BROLIAI“ of Bernardinai social services centre. On February 13th six students brought gifts to the social centre and spent some time with children. They told some stories about their activity, played games and introduced children with some foreign languages. The most attention received a student from Slovakia and one of Ethiopian languages presented by another student.
The first day had just started and meant to be very interesting - while going to the city centre it was snowing A LOT, snowstorm was performing its best. After arriving to the destination another challenge was to build a tent - no one of us had ever done such thing, so nobody had enough experience to do it right and after half an hour of trying we came to conclusion that one part was missing. However, it was not true and with the help of other fair's participants we finally did it! Just after preparing everything for the trade the first ERASMUS students showed who started communicating with people and raising the money very willingly. They were grouped by two people - one Lithuanian and one foreigner. All pairs had special "money boxes" and some postcards for presenting. Probably the biggest part of the attention was showed to Julius who screamed loudly using a megaphone two days in a row. But the most important thing was the sun - it warmed the air and also the atmosphere.
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