By Besnik Hoxha - YMCA Tirana, Albania
Two sessions, and still me and ROOTS have “stuff” to say to each-other. Actually, now I realize, there’s never a ‘goodbye’ but rather a ‘see you later’. After Berlin, all what I was thinking about was the time of the tandem groups projects, to put into work, what was created there. The call was open and Budapest was waiting. From the 16th- 22nd September me and 35 other people from 17 countries attended the Roots study session on Peace, E-activism and Campaigning. Through the time I learnt to increase the expectations because YMCA never disappoints. As someone once said “I go to work every morning with the possibility that I might learn something I don’t already know…. If you look at a problem as an opportunity to show what you already know, it’s useless. You should look at every problem and think, ‘what can I learn by doing this?’ And if you think you can learn nothing, forget about doing it.” That’s the great benefit of being in the YMCA, the possibility for learning never disappears.
Unlike the last time, in the new group were more people I did not know before. For some of them this was their first time in a kind of training abroad, and I had some flashbacks in my head, putting me in that place, anxious, enthusiastic and excited. How much things have changed, thankful to YMCA and the opportunities they offer to young people.
Passing through sessions, we learnt more about eActivism, Online Campaigning & Fundraising, Communication and Social Media. What will always be on my mind are the videos used to make a campaign, the types of campaigns used as brand awareness, promotional, community and causes, educational etc. We also learnt about the YMCA brand history and changes of logo through time. After all, we thought of creating campaigns about issues in our countries which brought many ideas, experiences, better understanding of other realities and so on. Thankful to the TEAM and EXPERTS who did an excellent job in transferring to us their knowledge, ideas, work, successes and lead us to a bright future. In just some days I’ve learned so much.
Not to forget the city: it was, amazing, amazing and amazing. The walking nights besides the river, with really good people will not be forgotten. Your contributions to the conversations make me want to do better, react better, THINK better. The sharing ideas, opinions, facts, personal thoughts and the after sessions fun (International Karaoke), will always be with me. Getting back is always hard, but as I said, it’s a ‘see you again’. To close it, in the end what matters are actions, so... stay tuned!
