AquaVita – Erasmus+, EU funded Youth Exchange in Kaunas, Lithuania

Green travel? All the way from Budapest to Kaunas? Sure, why not, trains and buses are far more exciting the planes. And that is how we did it. The organizers of our Erasmus+ Youth Exchange entitled AquaVita wanted participants to arrive by as sustainable means as possible. Considering the topic and the importance of their request, we obliged.

Spending 11 hours on a train, then a short night in a hostel, followed by 6 hours on a bus afforded us the chance to get to know each other better. Honestly, this is one of the best things about traveling low and slow.

It is always better when a group of participants arrives as a team and is raring to work from the get go. I must say, Team Poli was by far the best team because of the time and effort put into getting to know each other.

The venue and the facilitator:
The venue was a spectacular pilgrim hostel in a Franciscan friary established in the 17th century. It is the perfect place for a project this size.

The facilitators were fantastic, obvious believers in non-formal education. I learned several new tricks of the trade and specific workshop ideas to incorporate in my future projects and teaching. It was an honor to learn with them.

It is always a surprise when participants cannot speak English at the level needed for such a project. Luckily there were only 2 participants like that – their sending organizations n should have screened them better, honestly. Other surprising things were the lack of what our members consider common knowledge regarding water sustainability on the part of several partners.
Things like not letting water run when brushing teeth, washing dishes. Or to think that cola does not have any water in it and this is a more sustainable drink than water.

However, the purpose of this project was to improve, increase everybody’s knowledge, in real, practical terms regarding water management, conservation, sustainability. The facilitators achieved their goal, everybody enjoyed their time there. We all garnered a better overall comprehension of the topic and of each other’s cultures. A true double whammy and the real, underlying essence of Erasmus+ projects.

Hats off to Go Forward, well done!

Rod Dawson

And here are our young participants experiences…. Read on.

The AquaVita was my very first Erasmus+ project, and we can say that, it was an unforgettable experience.

Going into it, I was really excited, to see how an Erasmus+ project works. First, we traveled by train to Warsaw. It was 12 hours, so really long trip. But I really enjoyed it, and could sleep as well. When we arrived in in Warsaw, we settled down in a hostel, which was so much better, than in my expectations. And after we talked a bit there, we decided to go sightseeing, and I was enjoying it really much.

It was early morning, when we arrived at the bus station, to go to Lithuania from there. It was a bit worse trip than with the train, even though it was almost half of the time. But I couldn’t find a comfortable place to sleep.

We arrived in Lithuania early afternoon. After eating lunch and a bit of sightseeing we got used to the place, and waited for the other participants, who arrived later on that day.

The first few days were interesting in terms of the topic introductions, and our presentations. I laughed a lot, and enjoyed every moment of it. The participants were really nice, and interesting. After a while, the pace slowed down a bit and we discussed the same information several times in the various workshops and tasks like scavanger hunt, up-cycling clothes. And I was feeling really well, when out of nowhere I got ill, and started to vomit for a whole night on the penultimate evening.

Our Hungarian group was really good, and I can thank them really, because when I was ill, they brought me pills, and food, and looked after me. And not just because of this, but in general I think our team was the best of all there.

Despite my illness, I had a nice time in Lithuania, got to know new people, dived deeper and understood much about water pollution, and how to save water. I enjoyed every moment of the project, and it made me more curious and excited to join other projects, and experience them as well.

Pásztor Iván

I spent the last weak in Lithuania. It was an Erasmus +project about water pollution. We lived in a friary in Kaunas. The programs were interesting. There was some information that I already knew but they also taught me a lot of new things. I really enjoyed when we tried doing things with our own hands, for example we tried making homemade cleaning products and we also learned how to recreate and improve clothes.

There were Lithuanians, Italians and Poles. I shared my room with 3 Poles and one Hungarian. The Polish girls were so loud but at the end we got along very well. Actually by the end I became friends with everybody, the group developed well thanks to the common work.

I became aware of many aspects of water pollution which is a hot topic in Hungary and in the whole world. I have understood that we are all responsible for the protection of our environment.

Madarász Kincső

This Aqua Vita project was my third Erasmus+ so far, however I was pretty nervous about it because I didn’t really know anyone from the Hungarian group. This project was the longest project that I have ever been in, 11 days in total. We started our adventure with a 12 hour long train journey to Warsaw. We spent the evening there and explored the city during the evening, then we woke up at 5am to continue our way to Kaunas by a 7 hour long bus drive. In Kaunas we lived in a Franciscan monastery. It was fascinating, I certainly loved the vibe of it. The old style, smell and the look of the building. The food wasn’t that varied. The restaurant where we ate was pretty fancy, we ate a lot of pumpkin soup and, potatoes there every day with a lot of dill.

The other participants were from Lithuania, Italy and Poland. The topic for this Erasmus project was water pollution. It was interesting to see how little knowledge some people had on this subject. We made a bunch of presentations during the week with different websites, and at the end it was really hard for me to enjoy them. The creative programs were amazing, where we could put our ideas into tangible things. We recycled and upcycled old clothes, tried different ways to clean dirty clothes with simple items and made videos about water pollution.

Most of the time we were working in smaller groups. Everyone was really friendly, kind and open minded the whole week. It was easy to work with them and I enjoyed spending time with these people. I shared a room with 1 Hungarian and 3 polish girls which was pretty funny. They were really loud but friendly and entertaining at the same time. We had a great time together. My personal favorite program was the culture night. I learned a lot of interesting and basic info about these countries and their traditions. The dancing part was the best, I liked the Polish one too but especially the Lithuanian dance. I think I learned a lot of useful this during this Erasmus project about water pollution, fast fashion and increased my knowledge on this subject. Kaunas is a quiet, little sleepy but gorgeous city at the same time full of historical buildings.

During the week a mysterious virus started to spread and almost everyone caught it. 2 people even had to go to the hospital. In our last night we wrote anonymous messages to each other backs which was a heartwarming and touching gesture. It was a sad but happy night at the same time because we had to say goodbye to each other. I liked everyone and I think I made some great new friends there even if we are not from the same country. I hope this wasn’t the last time to see each other. Luckily the Hungarian team was extremely good, so I even made new friends at school too, it was fun to travel with. The next day we woke up early in the morning, went to Warsaw by a 7 hour long bus drive, then got on another bus and took 12 more hours the to get home.  

Ceglédi Fanni

The AquaVita Erasmus project+ was my first Erasmus, so I had various feelings going into it, as I didn’t know what to expect. The first programs were about some basic information about the project, the programs, and Erasmus in general, which were important, because I had a basic idea about everything.

As the project’s name was AquaVita which means “Water of life” the project was focused on the role of water around the world, the pollution problem, and how to save water in general, and what can we as students do about it.

We had a variety of programs, and in the first couple of days it was revolving around us consuming information, presentations, discussion about the topics, which seemed a bit dry and boring, however looking back they played an important role, because without appropriate and correct information how could we make the rest of the project possible?

They also were important because most of the participants, including me didn’t have much knowledge about these topics, and had poor awareness levels on the problems itself.

The following days we were in charge of making materials, workshops, presentations, short movies and everything in between. My favorite ones were where I could unleash my creativity, for example making short films, mini books, doing a scavenger hunt, and upcycling old clothes, but they were also the ones which were the most tiring ones.

Now, after the projects I have a way better idea of the problems, and what I can do about them in my day to day life, and I know what changes I will make. which is thanks to the fact that most of the workshops were implementation based, which is by far the best thing about the programs.

Overall, I had a very great time during both the programs and the Erasmus itself due to the social aspect, which was also really good as I got to know very different people from different countries with different cultures, and also I got a lot closer to my schoolmates, we had so much fun both in and outside of the programs, and the only negative thing that I can bring up is the long travel time, but apart from that I had one of the best weeks of my life, and I feel very happy and fulfilled about it.

Bartus Áron

I really enjoyed my first Erasmus project, I had a really great time. The leader of the project was really present, prepared and a nice person, and she solved every problem easily. Her assistant was a girl at our age, who also made the project so much fun. There were participants from 4 countries: Italy, Hungary, Lithuania and Poland.

We had a lot of workshops and activities planned for every day. We talked a lot about water  pollution, the causes, the effects and the solutions of it. I honestly haven’t learned a lot of new things, mostly because at home we talked about these things a lot since we were little. I feel like most of the information shouldn’t have been new to anyone. It was kinda shocking to me how little the other participants knew and cared about the topic. For example most of them didn’t know what are the effects of fast fashion and what is it exactly.
To discuss this topic I think a little more advanced English knowledge should’ve been required. It was surprising that there was an Italian girl who didn’t speak any English at all and she wasn’t the only one who had trouble expressing themselves.

In overall I found most of the activities and workshops interesting. Regarding the workshops my favorite was the scavenger hunting. I had a really good group there and we completed all the tasks in a good mood.

I really liked the Hungarian team, we had a lot of fun and we were able to work together. I made good friends from all the other countries too.
We also had a couple free afternoons and evenings, when we usually had a movie night in someone’s room. We also went sightseeing in Kaunas. I was glad I was able to communicate in English for a longer time again.

The only really negative thing was the virus that was spreading, almost everyone got sick including me, and 2 guys had to go to the hospital too. We got medicine and anything we needed. People either got some stomach flu or just regular cold. Despite that I still had fun.

Our accommodation was a little interesting because we lived in a monastery, and it was super cold sometimes. The food was pretty good but sometimes it wasn’t a big enough portion.  

I’m glad I was able to experience an Erasmus project, I made many new friends from other countries. My favorites were the culture nights and the movie nights. I learnt and experienced many new things on this project, and I hope I’ll be able to experience Erasmus life again soon to make more memories like these.
Tatár Dorka

We left Budapest in the morning of the 6th of November. The train took us to Warsaw it was a pleasent trip, time went by really fast and we had a good time. We arrived to Warsaw late in the evening, but we still wanted to look around the city for a while. It was really cold but I am glad we did it. The next morning we left early to catch our bus that took us straight to Kaunas. I slept through the whole ride so it also went by quickly.
The first night we got to meet the participants of the other countries. We got dinner and lunch at a very nice restaurant every day.
We started our first full day with some more introductions then we listened to a forest specialists presentation. The rest of the day went by with getting to know the projects structure. The second day every group did presentations on their countries situations about water pollution. In the afternoon we got a chance to discuss different questions about water pollution one on one with every people and this task made me realise how little some of the participants care or know about the topic. It was surprising to see and hear that things that I considered basic knowledge and I learned it a long time ago was new information to people in their 20s. We had a lot of fun programs throught the week. We went on scavanger hunt, we had creative workshops, we made videos, but at the same time we had activities that provided opportunities to get to know the others. We also had intercultural evenings which helped us get to know eachothers’ cultures and countries better. The program also provided us with free time, an I am really grateful for that. I had a really fun time and I am very fortunate that I had the chance to participate.
Habi Zsófia

We spent a wonderful week in Kaunas during a super Erasmus. The Erasmus topic, the  water protection was interesting but mainly useful for me, I received a lot of new surprising information, especially regarding fast fashion, the huge waste of water by clothing factories was completely new to me. During the programs, I quickly realized how much more I, and everybody needs to do for our earth. Also, there were topics that I had already heard a lot about, so it didn’t add anything new, but for other participants unfortunately it was new.

The programs were very well organized, I can’t say anything negative about them. The people were wonderful, the community was perfect, i made a lot of friends.  I loved the accommodation, it was in a great location, everything was very close. The restaurant where we ate everyday was also perfect, I loved the foods, but sometimes it wasn’t enough for me. The negative part in the project was to say goodbye to everybody :).

Thank you very much for this week.!

Nagy-Hunya Márton