What you got to do to get the life that you dream?

Start putting some pressure on yourself!

Take yourself out of the comfort zone!

I can’t forget when I had to decide if taking part or not into my first E+ project in Romania, the topic was “Business Piooners”, interesting topic I thought… but…

Alone in a new country, different languages, far from my home, Less time to study for my exams…

Are we crazy?

I thought: Why can’t I chill myself at home, hanging out with my friends, going to my favourite club?

Guys, Now I can say that I was definetily stupid..

I mean :Why are we here? In this world… Just to chill our selves in our hometown? Are we sure?

Trust me…We are not here just to drink our favourite drinks near our home.

We are here for a constant growth, we are here to improve everyday.

I think that life gives us 2 options, just 2 , no one more…

1) Become the master of your own destiny

2) Hand over the keys, and you let life happen to you, by default.

I hope that everyone inside is thinking to pick the first option, but that’s the point:

Success is not a confortable procedure!

If you stay in your comfort zone that’s where you will fail.

Take risks, is the only way to success!

Don’t care about the people, people love talking.

If you lose, people will say that you are a loser

If you win, people will say that you didn’t win in a honest way.

If you help someone people will say that you wait for something in return.

If you don’t help people will say that you are bitchy.

Everythink you’ll do, people will judge you…. judging is easier than making.

Follow your road!

Do what you think is right, not what the grapevine thinks is. But please don’t choose the easiest option, more than often that’s not the best for us!

According to my personal experience my first project was a great opportunity to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone.

People told me “don’t go, you have to study for you exams”.

“I can do both the things” I answered.

And that’s what I did! I challenged myself.

I came back home full of amazing memories and I was already thinking about the next one.

After the project I slept less to study more and that’s the point… if you want something fight for it! Make sacrifices if necessary!

The fun fact is that many of the people who told me “don’t go”, didn’t pass the exam.

Take the risks guys, it’s the only way to have success.

by Marco Gennusa

A Youth Exchange Experience

I am about to tell you something memorable. I am so excited to share my experience form the "Business Pioneers" Youth Exchange Project that I attended between 17th and 27th of February 2022. Amazing time, amazing people, amazing opportunity!

We began by getting to know each other through a few fun games. Then, we participated in activities such as "Mission (Im)possible" in which we completed tasks while finding out more information about the rest of the participants. This type of coordinated interactions made us truly a team, not just a random group of people.

The knowledge I gained about social entrepreneurship will forever be useful to me. Luckily, the only requirement for non-formal education is creativity. Everything else is based on a set of skills which you develop or improve throughout the project. You learn how to learn, you understand new principles and facts on every topic. In addition, the facilitators guided us accordingly in every situation. They also explained the information clear enough for us to understand, to remember and to use it during the activities.

Everything was fun and games during the daytime but when the night fell, the party began. Every. Night. Every country had the chance to be in charge of the grand nighttime event. Of course, I mean the cultural nights. Were you really thinking about something else? For example, at the beginning of the Romanian cultural night, everybody was greeted with traditional live music. After that, we presented our beautiful country with 2 videos and then the game started. We organized a tasting traditional mini-dinner with representative food and drinks. And then we danced. And partied. And socialized. And had a good time.

Here are some pictures that tell the story of the project in a nutshell.

I'm looking forward to your reply! Let's participate in a project together! Join me next time "Initiative Sociale" organizes a project!

P.S. Tell your friends!

Hugs,

Iulia

Everything started with a mixture of different feelings

Everything started with a mixture of different feelings: fear, curiosity, criticism and after a few days which actually seemed months, the feelings changed. Today it is about love, appreciation, gratitude and solidified relationships. We, as a team learnt a lot during these days.

First, we learnt about social entrepreneurship, to respect and encourage each other ideas, we learnt to be more open to the others perspective of life about business. 

This program helped each of us boosting our competences and motivations about the world being a social entrepreneur thanks to the workshops and public speaking. For some of us it was the first being involved in the creation of a business idea, do some team work, doing some research and make those ideas come true through a pitch in front of the audience that acted like investors. All of us put so much efforts in them to be unique and to express the best of social entrepreneurship. We felt so proud for everyone, we perceived the uniqueness of each of us, the diversity and the need to be accepted for who we are.

Someone was afraid to express ourself but at the end they manage to do it. Our expectations about the program were completely fulfilled and I’m glad that I could make a small contribution to this program.

We learnt how to be creative, how to be responsible, and effective in our ideas, we learnt how to be a …"business pioneer!"

Vincenzo Imperato

Business Pioneers - our story

 by Ana P.

Dissemination process ''Business Pioneers''

Dear friends,

In this email I want to share my experience about my last Erasmus plus project and to give you some details about it.

The project took part in a small city in Romania, near the sea, called Costinesti, and the name of it of course ''Business Pioneers''.

It was my first Erasmus plus project that I ever took part, but I can easily say and I'm sure about it that even if I take part in other projects also, this will be sure one of the best. The good memories that come in my mind are so many.

After the first days, when we did some super fun and interesting warm-up activities to know each other better, to built up our bonds even better and to get to know better the Erasmus plus programms, we dealt with terms like entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship as well. In that, Ioana and Adrian (our mentors and facilitators of the program) informed us more about that issue and also some other participants and friends of the project shared their knowledge and some fresh ideas about business issues which was very interesting because many of us weren't so aware of those business potentials.

After that, with the guidance of our facilitators we were separated (with very cool ways) in teams where we were called to create our own social business from the start and then to do a presentation about it in front of the other teams. I think that by that way, I learned very useful information about how to design a business plan step by step and make it possible and sustainable.

Through all this procedure I became also more aware of the working conditions and status of each participant country and the procedure of how you can fund a business for each of them. Also I saw some very interesting and innovative ideas from other teams about their social business and became even more aware of some social issues.

I can't skip some cool activities we did at our day trip at Costanta, a big city next to Costinesti with a lot of history and many beautiful scenes and buildings, and at the Costinesti beach, which I enjoyed very much and at the end of them we learned some useful life tips that came up from that activities.

Last but not least, the cultural and party nights: traditional foodies and drinks from other countries, kahoot quizes and other funny games, traditional songs, karaoke, all that, and of course much singing and dancing made those nights super fun and unforgettable.

Hope I motivated you through this email to take part in one of those projects Iniative Sociale organizes, their people are so friendly, experienced and make you feel welcomed from the first moments. And let's not forget that they organize each project so well from the bottom to the end. Also in such experiences Erasmus plus provides, made me realize that each of us are so different yet all the same and if we behave like that we can do graet things all together.

That's all folks! Thank you!

Myrto

We travel to discover new places to call home

"Humans exist to discover, learn and think. In this way we manage to grow, evolve and build a better version of ourselves. 

Erasmus+ teaches you to destroy borders, to embrace those who speak another language and turn your relationship into a bond between nations. Cultures exist to build an identity, to value historical traditions, but they should never serve to discriminate. 

Those who see enemies under a flag other than their country's do not even deserve to inhabit planet earth.

In Romania we have witnessed the outbreak of a war in Europe, something that seemed unthinkable, and we have done so surrounded by people from other countries. 

Hopefully we are able to understand the world as a common home, nothing justifies supremacy".

Hug,

Teresa Martín