Albania, Czech Republic, Croatia, Germany, Italy, Poland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, Ukraine and Hungary are the 12 countries from where 22 youngsters came to Timi?oara (Romania) to represent their national associations at the Kolping Youth Europe membership meeting, which took place on the 9th-12th of November 2017.
Friday morning we headed towards the office of the organisation and, together with Ana-Maria Andronic, the facilitator of the „Promotion and motivation” workshop, we managed to get to know each other better. Then the Board of Kolping Youth Europe, represented by Gellért Szabó (president), Henrietta Blejan (vicepresident) and Viktorija Erjavec, presented the activity report (important to point out are the European Youth Week, the photo contest and the newsletter) and the plans for the upcoming year, while Patrycja Kwapik spoke about the financial situation. Then followed the presentation of the youth activities of each participating country, which gave us the opportunity to appreciate the diversity and the particularities of each association, at the same time making us think of the words of Adolph Kolping – “The needs of the times will teach you what to do.” During the afternoon we clarified what Kolping means to each of us, which are the target groups when we talk about attracting new members and how we can involve young people in volunteering activities. In other words, we focused on promotion. A great opportunity to unwind and to have fun was the cultural evening that took place alterwards.
The discussions we had on Saturday were focused on motivation. Divided into 5 working groups, we shared experiences, discussed what motivates and demotivates us, identified the common problems we face in our volunteering work and saw how, through the activities carried out, the association responds to every level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. During the afternoon we mixed business with pleasure and also reinforced the idea of teamwork by working together in order to get out of an escape room. Later that day we participated at the Holy Mass and said the Prayer of the Faithful in every language of the participants.
On Sunday, during the evaluation session, Serbia expressed its desire to organise the next Membership Meeting of Kolping Youth Europe in Novi Sad. Proposals for organising the European Youth Week are still awaited.
Gathered together from all over Europe and without previously having had the opportunity to interact very much with each other, this promotion and motivation workshop gave us the opportunity to build stronger ties and it also gave us an impulse for the following year. I will conclude with the words of Adolph Kolping, which could be considered a conclusion to our meeting – ”Those who want to win people must leave their hearts as a token.”
Ana-Maria Nicu
The meeting was financed by the European Union (Erasmus +).