As the Cypriot team, which was composed of four participants from different cities and a leader, we participated in the project “Youthpass: Useful or Useless”, that took place on 20-29 March 2017, in Busteni, Romania.  The project aimed mostly at the knowledge of the 8 key-competences of non-formal education that a participant achieves on youth-exchanges.

The project was really interesting, full of activities and team-building games, as well as some visits at castles, like the famous “Bran Castle”. Of course, the intercultural nights were not missing from the program where the eight participating countries, among them, Romania, Finland, Lithuania, Cyprus, Greece, Poland, Italy and Latvia, had to present each other.

The last three days, were completely dedicated to the debates, where, firstly, we had the properly lecture of how school debating is working and its structure, and later on, mixed in teams, we had to compete each other and debate on two main subjects: firstly if the “Youthpass certificate is useless” and secondly, if the “Key-competences achieved in youth-exchanges are useful”. The debates were harsh, with full of anxiety and a lot of sweating faces, because we could not eliminate the existence of the questioning, if every participant was capable to debate in the target language, which was in English. While were keeping on, they were becoming more and more interesting. In the end, we had two teams, at the finals, which took place at the school of Busteni.

To end up, new and strong friendships came to the surface and the farewell time, even though it was sad and harsh, was full of positive smiles and promises, like seeing each other again. A big thank you, at the PlanBe, Plan it Be it organization, who gave us this opportunity to be a part of this team and participate at such a successful project.  Also many thanks to the Romanian organization ODEN Nehoiu, who offered us experiences and memories of a lifetime. We are looking forward for next projects, next challenges!