News

One Step Closer to Erasmus+ was a project conducted by ESN Romania, with the aim of boosting the capacity of its local organisations to promote the European mobility and volunteering programmes to youth in Romania. For this purpose, the project was structured on two tiers:

 

Phase One:

A training event that took place in Bucharest in 20-24 January 2022, which was attended by 24 ESN volunteers and 19 international students, who became more informed on the European mobility programmes, gained more knowledge on nonformal education methods, and developed their presentation skills.

The Team of Trainers (volunteers of ESN Romania and garagErasmus4Bucharest) that delivered the content of the training took a practical approach. The first half of the training consisted of informative sessions and presentations that helped the participants know more about the mobility programmes and nonformal education. Afterwards, the participants were divided on teams of two or three and had to prepare 1-hour mock workshops and / or interactive presentations that were presented in front of their peers and were subjected to feedback for improvement.

 

Phase Two:

After attending the training event in January, participants were required to deliver Erasmus in Schools activities in their respective local organisations, presenting the opportunities offered by the European mobility programmes, all while employing the nonformal education techniques learned during the first phase.

In total, the participants delivered 14 such presentations throughout February, reaching a total of 535 high school and university students. The involvement of international students during these presentations helped to increase their impact by adding an intercultural layer to the interactions with local students.

 

Additional project impacts

Collaboration between National Organisations: This project also served as a first step in boosting the collaboration between ESN Romania and ESN Bulgaria. Three spots at the training event were allocated to ESN Bulgaria (from which one volunteer and two international students joined), and the two National Organisations further went on to submit a joint project proposal in ulterior ESAA calls for projects.

Collaboration with the National Agency: Representatives from the Romanian National Agency (ANPCDEFP) were invited to the training event and delivered sessions on the European mobility programmes, thus marking an important collaboration between the Agency and ESN Romania in the field of advocacy.

Intercultural dimension: The training event fostered a diverse and intercultural climate, with participants (both volunteers and international students) coming from three different continents (representing 12 countries overall).

Best practice: Since its ending, the One Step Closer to Erasmus+ project received heavy appreciation with the ESN network, being awarded the first place in the Mobility Award category of the ESN Awards (an annual contest for the best initiatives in the network, voted by the volunteers themselves) and receiving praise from other national organisations and volunteers of ESN. The most lauded aspect of the project was the involvement of the international students in the advocacy activities, being considered an important approach in bridging the gap between the network’s volunteers, the incoming mobility students, and potential outgoing mobility students.

 

You can find more information on the project here:

Live Facebook post by ESN Romania on project results.

YouTube testimonials from participants on their mobility experiences.

 

 

Claudiu Nicolae Făgădar – Project Coordinator