Vilnius

On the weekend of 14th to 15th of November, the fourth international training Survival Kit vol.4 took place in Lithuania. This event was held in Vilnius, by ESN ISM. During this event we gathered more than 60 people, including participants, ESN Lithuania NB members and international trainers. In the course of two days we had two training tracks – one for newbies, one for advanced learners.
Newbies workshops was held by Kacper Olczyk and Lerio Cunha. In Kacper’s training course ESN newbies were learning about successful promotion of events and  what is the best way to master the art of a perfect promotion. Lerio was teaching  volunteers the art of public speech and how to learn to trust yourself and another person during teamwork workshops.
Advanced track was held by Carlos Guillermot and Piero Gentilini – they formed one amazing cooperation and led their course as a team. Another advanced workshop was held by Mikas Macijauskas.
Carlos’s and Piero’s training was focused on improving skills of time management in order to increase one’s working abilities and possibilities. Also, another workshop was held about motivation was based on self-motivation and teaching leaders to bring  motivation to sections in everyday ESN’ers life situations.
Mikas held a training about visual communication skills, simple rules of  logo or  banner creation and simply how to communicate with ESN world using just visual material.
Every day after training sessions teambuilding games were held. They helped to know more about yourself and your fellow ESN’ers. ESN Lithuania can proudly say, that during this weekend a lot of ESN’ers believed that things might not be as hard as they first seem to be and that learning together -from each other- is one of the best ways to learn something new and usefully integrate it into their lives.

It’s a wonderful time of the year. Easter holiday comes to our country and welcomes the spring! Playing Easter games and eating traditional dishes brings families together. But not all the people can share their joy and happiness with beloved ones. That’s why sections of ESN Lithuania together with SocialErasmus Coordinator decided to do a good deed and unite international students with the children and elders to celebrate it together. The sections visited children day centers, orphanages and elderly homes and spread the Easter spirit all over the place. They decorated eggs, played traditional games and even prepared musical performances. Let’s have a look what kind of activities some sections had during past two weeks.

On 24^th of March ESN KK have celebrated Easter in a very traditional way. They taught international students how to decorate Easter eggs in all kinds of different ways. After that they all together have visited elderly house and shared their countries Easter traditions with elders.

On 25^th of March ESN VMU together with international students went to Child Care Center and spent time with children by helping them to prepare for Easter. They played games and decorated Easter eggs as well. After the meeting VMU students shared their impressions - “We spent there unforgettable afternoon and brought Easter joy to the children!”

On 26^th of March ESN ISLB team together with international students went to Čižiūnai Orphanage and spent a memorable time with children. Students played games, balloon fight, and football match with their new little friends. The day was summed up with the Easter dinner where they presented musical performance.

On 27^th of March ESN KUK with Erasmus students went to a child day care centre. They were introduced with all children’s activities, decorated eggs, played games, learned several Lithuanian words and had an amazing time together.

On 30^th of March ESN VGTU organized a visit to one pension in Vilnius, where students learnt old traditions of painting eggs with wax and Easter games, as well. They were really kindly welcomed there by livers of the pension and even given some handmade presents. After the big job while decorating eggs, they had coffee and cake time and SURPRISINGLY, the barrier of language differences didn’t cause any discomfort. We also had the most beautiful egg election and the “Rolling eggs game”, which was really funny. 

 On 3^rd of April ESN LEU members and their exchange students together with ESN MRU Vilnius exchange students spent some time with children at the children’s day center. The children were happy to have visitors from all around the world.

All together international students and local communities built the bridges between different cultures and traditions. The ESN Lithuania team hopes that the warmth sections have shared with children and elders were appreciated and made them happier and that it was unforgettable experiences for international students as well.

Happy Easter everyone!  

Last weekend, 21^st-22^nd of March, ESN Lithuania once again brought more than 100 participants together to the 23rd National Platform which was held in Vilnius. The national event named “United Edition” was organized by two sections ESN LEU and ESN MRU Vilnius. The plenaries and workshops took place at those two universities. As it was set some time ago, Spring NP was dedicated to the reports of sections, National Board members, National Coordinators, Committees, and Alumni Club.

The first day of NP’23 was hosted by ESN LEU at the University of Educational Sciences. Highlight of the day was definitely the presentation of the new brochure “NP Shortcuts“ initiated and created by ESN LT Alumni and a PuRe Committee member Mikas Macijauskas. Each participant got one copy of it in order to be better informed about the terminology of National Platform as well as to get some general information of what this event is about. One more excited piece of news reached the audience – the brand new ESN Lithuania‘s website and the web shop were officially launched. Moreover, for the first time ever National Platform was available online for ESN members who couldn’t attend the event. The idea to stream it online via live.esn.org was initiated by the IT committee.

The second day of NP’23 was hosted by ESN MRU Vilnius at Mykolas Romeris University. Not to mention the NB’s and National Coordinators’ reports, updates of the international event “ESN Spring Training Kaunas” were given by the OC ESN VMU and ESN KTU. Important topics as ND role, International Board Candidates and budget changes were also presented. At the end, the sections had a voting session and approved the OC for upcoming NP – ESN KUK together with ESN SMK.

A National Platform wouldn’t be a National Platform without any guests. This time representatives of State Department of Tourism and ISIC suggested their partnership possibilities. As it became a tradition, 5 international guests took part in it as well. The first intern of ESN Lithuania, Thebault Pean, said “Hello” to the network. His main task will be to help ESN Lithuania implement the ExchangeAbility project. Also, representatives from ESN Poland and ESN Turkey presented their countries and the main activities of their sections.

Overall, smiles, applause, positive emotions and best practices made this National Platform a great success. The last weekend, ESN LEU and ESN MRU Vilnius showed us the beauty of cooperation in ESN. Let them inspire us to continue showing the spirit of the network and collaborate with each other to achieve greater results for ESN Lithuania!

More pictures can be found here.

Newly approved ESN VDK section became the 9th ESN section in Vilnius and the 14th official section of ESN Lithuania. It probably would not have happened without the current section president, Mikas Macijauskas, who is also an active member of PuRe committee. We won’t be wrong saying that he is one of the most hardly working ESNers in Lithuania at the moment. Let’s try to figure out his point of view of ESN life and what wonderful things he and his newly approved section achieved and planning next.

Hello, Mikas! It is really nice that I got a chance to take an interview with you. How are you doing?

First of all let me thank You for interviewing me. I’m doing great. I’ve just met new Erasmus students and I’m very excited.

I would like to ask, supposedly, the most common question that popped into every ESNer’s mind who attended the NP22: How did you first feel after the announcement that your section got the spot under the “ESN sun”?

I was shocked, happy and relieved at the same time. It was once in a lifetime experience.

How does your beautifully pink ESN VDK’s team feel? Are there any important changes in your section after the National Platform?

My team feels as good as it gets. Everyone is so happy, because our work has paid off. After NP22 we set our goal to work even harder, to organise activities even better than we did before, expand our section to it’s maximum capabilities and to spread out the word about ESN into unseen horizons.

As a leader of your section, tell us what was the beginning of ESN VDK? Was it hard to express your idea of a whole new thing to other people and attract them to join ESN?

I can’t imagine how everything would have been without our former section president’s Magė Fledžinskaitė help. She did a lot. She was the one who convinced people to join ESN family and revealed the idea of ESN. So I’m grateful for her well done job.

We all know that you are a great team, but do you feel like you are ready to be a fully functioning section?

We are not. Just a month ago we were a section candidate, but getting place in ESN is one big step into becoming fully functioning section. We learn fast and I personally believe that we will be that section quite soon.

What was the hardest thing during those six months while you were a candidate section?

The hardest thing was living with the idea, that we will not be confirmed by ESN and our work won’t be seen by other sections. Maybe that was also very motivating and that’s why we were trying so hard.

Is it hard being the president of a newbie section? What are the things that keep you going?

It is easy. Our section is small, so I can contact every member personally in just a few minutes. This way it is easier to track the progress of organising event, to see who’s doing his job well, who need some advices. After every activity we do we see happy students and that’s what keeps me going.

Tell us, how does your section meetings usually go? How do you brainstorm the ideas of an upcoming ESN VDK events?

Meetings? We meet each other every day. But the official ones, in my opinion, has no difference from other sections’ meetings. Generating ideas is never part of our meetings. Generating ideas on meetings would bring down the quality of ideas. So we brainstorm at free time.

Your section seems to have a bit different point of view, in a good way. Now, that you have all the abilities to express yourself, maybe you and your team are going to try on giving something different than other sections had given ESN in all those years?

We have? It’s good to hear that. I believe every section tries to do something different. That’s why every section is unique.

So, what‘s next? What are the big ESN VDK‘s future plans?

Well… We love to get a lot of attention. So be ready. When it will be something big – we will share it with you. I don’t want to give a spoiler for you.

We hope that this new powerful section will be with ESN for as long as possible. Maybe you would like to say something to the sections that are now going through candidate stage? Any personal advice?
 
I would like to wish them good luck. If they need any help – we are always here for them.

Written by Ieva Malaničeva, Proud member of PuRe Committee.