The Erasmus + project “A.PA.C.H.E. – Active PArticipation through Creative Hand and Elettronic-writings” was held from 28th of June to 6th of July 2016 in Cornedo Vicentino. And where it is? Cornedo is a small, beautiful and picturesque town on the North of Italy, distant around 2 hours of car drive from Venice.
A.PA.C.H.E is a youth exchange project in which were involved 7 teams from 6 different countries: Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Croatia, Bulgaria and Italy. Each team had 6 members so the overall number of participants was 42.
Our team from Croatia were composed by Ena Hustnjak, Iva Ćorković, Magdalena Marija Meašić, Mislav Živković, Nikola Greb and Štefica Škarika. Ena speaks a great Italian which advantaged the team a lot, Iva was always ready to help, Magdalena had a great sense of humour, Mislav was really creative, Štefica took a lot of responsibility and reacted very well in stressful situation, and I was a wise team leader!
During the youth exchange we had seven days to work together and create short creative novels. In fact, the topic of the project was creative writing, a method that encourages the writer to use imagination in ways that makes the person more aware of surroundings. Create a novel it wasn’t an easy job, but in the end we succeeded to write a good novel about a rock concert in Hungary with the little help from a professional writer. By encouraging us to write from different narratives, we had the chance to examine all sides of different stories and cultures, not just from one perspective.
Besides, one of the primary goals of the youth exchange was also to bring together young people from different European countries in order to give them the chance to learn from each other cultures and diversities. During the “Intercultural Night” we presented our countries, languages and traditions.
Our stay in Cornedo Vicentino was also an occasion to visit two of the most romantic cities of Italy, Venice and Verona. It was really a great experience. We learned a bit about the history of these towns and tried some local specialties. We definitely recommend to try Caffè sceccherato and Italian ice cream!
The time has passed so quickly. Although we didn’t know each other at the beginning of the project, we all had great time and became friends, so we all look forward for the next project and adventure together!
Written by Nikola Greb, youth leader of the Croatian group