Volley Science activities - Alexandra

Volley Science activities - Alexandra

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  Brochure Association Yellow Shirts Project Volleyball isnot rocket science, we are! Baia Mare, Romania 2019
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  Yellow Shirts Association BaiaMare, Romania yellow_shirts_ro@hotmail.com facebook.com/YellowShirtsRomania Volleyball is not rocket science. We are! 2018-1-RO01-ESC11-061246 Volunteer: Alexandra Rodrigues Period: April – December 2019
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  3 Introduction This brochure wasdesign to show my work as a volunteer and my civic participation and involvement in the community’s life throughout the duration of the ESC project. I have worked as a volunteer for the “Yellow Shirts” Association in Baia Mare, Romania, for nine months in a project titled “Volleyball is not rocket science, we are!” This brochure is divided into five major topics - the first one about the activities with PhotoSport YSR (sports photography related to senior volleyball team Știința Explorări from Baia Mare); the second one about general activities (required to do on a frequently and/or weekly basis); the third one about different volunteering experiences that I had in Baia Mare, as well as in other places of Romania; the fourth one about events and workshops (some in which I have participated, others I hosted); and in fifth, other activities that happened in Baia Mare, such as attending other association’s events and workshops. Below is a list of the topics detailed in this brochure:  Activities with YSR  Project General activities  Volunteering experiences  Events and workshops  Other activities and events
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  4 Activities with Photo SportYSR
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  5 Sports photography This activitymostly consists of taking photos of the league matches between the senior volleyball team of Baia Mare - Știința Explorări vs. other Romanian teams. The games season usually starts between October and ends in April-May. The games are usually photographed when the team Știința Explorări plays in Baia Mare in the Sport Complex Hall. During the game different types of photos are taken: volleyball techniques such as the serve and the attack; the audience, the referees, the judges, the team’s presentation in the beginning, action photos and individual portrait photos of each player - all these photos taken to both teams. The photos of the game are later selected, edited and sent to the coordinator to be published the next day on the PhotoSport YSR official Facebook page. I learned how to use the photo digital camera and sport photography techniques with my coordinator, with other photographers that I met and worked during my project and by reading guides and other materials. To practice and to learn more about sport photography I attended some of the senior volleyball team practices and also took photos of the high school and junior volleyball practices (girls and boys teams) in Oradea. Senior volleyball friendly matches are also photographed, when played in Baia Mare. Materials: Digital Camera: Nikon D5100; Objective Nikkor: 55-300 mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR
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  7 Project General Activities
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  8 Photo Exhibition In thebeginning of the project, I prepared a photo exhibition of the city of Baia Mare. I selected 30 photos, created a theme and a title for the exhibition, as well as subtitles for each picture. All the photos were organized in a specific order, laminated and hanged outside in the Bastionul Măcelarilor’s museum garden, in the city center, for a couple of weeks. Writing articles Since the beginning of the project I have written a total of 18 articles. The majority of the articles are about volunteering experiences and events (inside and outside Baia Mare). The others are about my experience as an international volunteer, my expectations and perspectives from the beginning, about the on-arrival training, mid-term and one about the city of Brașov. Writing weekly reports At the end of each week I filled out a weekly report evaluation form, where I write in details each activity performed during the week. I also write what I learned, my involvement in the community’s life, Romanian language progress, mentor and team members relationship evaluation as well as highlighting the positive and the negative aspects that we encountered. This is one of the ways to evaluate my progress throughout the project, find
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  9 what I needto improve and reflect on the experience. Also it was useful towards the end of the project, to review the information to write on the Youthpass certificate. Welcoming new volunteers to the project When two new volunteers joined our project, as requested by the coordinator, I did some activities with the volunteers that consisted in sharing experiences about volunteering, motivation and making a video together to promote volunteering in Romania. Also reviewed Youthpass competences and skills with them, and provided more information about Erasmus+ and European Solidarity Corp programs. Sport Activities in schools After the month of October, we started to go to schools every week to make sport activities with pupils during the sport class. Also during an exchange program with another NGO, in November, we had the opportunity to go to primary schools to make activities with kids during the sport class. A week before going to the school we start preparing the games and the activities, for indoors and/or outdoors depending on the weather conditions, to then implement them when we go to lead the sport class with the respective teacher. The major outdoor activity we do is to teach volleyball to pupils. The majority of the classes we went to are in primary schools and our target audience are children between 7 and 10 years old, but we also went to a high school once a week to make sport class with 9th and 10th grade pupils.
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  10 Volunteering experiences
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  11 Curling Championship C-division 11-17April 2019 Brașov I volunteered for six days in Patinoarul Olimpic of Brașov, for the European Curling Championship, C-division. My main task was to help prepare the ice rink for the players before the games and in between games, including cleaning the ice and ordering the stones for the players. I received a short training from the ice technicians on the day of my arrival and performed the task on the following days. 1st day - shift started at 8 AM to prepare the ice, and then later at 4 PM I attended the Opening Ceremony; 2nd day - shift started at 6 AM to prepare the ice rink for the practices; games started at 8 AM and I worked in between the games until lunch time; 3rd day - shift also started at 6 AM, similar to the previous day; 4th day - shift started at 7 AM to prepare the ice rink for the practices; games started at 10 AM. 5th day - shift started at 6 AM to prepare the ice rink for the practices; games started at 8 AM. 6th day - shift started at 6.30 AM to prepare the ice rink for the practices; games started at 9 AM; cleaning and preparing the ice sheets for the games at 2.30 PM; attended the Closing Ceremony after the finals at 5 PM; helped taking out all materials including posters from the ice rink related to curling to have the rink ready for the other sports practices; attended the Closing Banquet at 8 PM with all the players and volunteers and everybody involved in the championship.  Learning opportunity This was an opportunity to meet more local volunteers, to practice Romanian language, to work in a team, following strict schedules and to get into the sports volunteering spirit, meaning, feeling part of something bigger.
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  12 Helping out ina Youth exchange 4-8 May 2019 Oradea I spent 1 week with my coordinator in Oradea helping with a youth exchange project named “We know the importance of voting in EU” promoted by the Association of Intercultural Communities within the Erasmus + program. During this week I had three main tasks: to take photos of the daily activities of the youth exchange; to plan and film a promotional video to encourage young people to vote for the upcoming EU elections; and to go to one of the high schools of Oradea to take photos of cadets and junior volleyball practices. - Photos of the exchange activities carried out by the participants - such as discussions about problems faced by the youth and possible solutions; presentations about EU parliament and European countries; intercultural evenings. - EU election videos - filmed with the help of the participants from the exchange; they all participated in the video, identifying one problem they wished to be solved by the EU parliament in the future. I edited the video and got it finalized after the exchange. - Photos of volleyball practice - taken in the Sportive Programme High School from Oradea (LPS Bihorul team) of cadets and junior volleyball practices and sent later to the school.  Learning opportunity This was an opportunity to practice photography (generally) but also sport photography to later apply in one of the project’s purposes, which is taking photos to senior volleyball matches. It was as well an opportunity to also learn more about European Union institutions, its structure and obviously the importance of voting for the EU and how to vote for such elections. Editing the promotional video was also a challenge as it was the first time making a video with personal testimonies with such a distinctive objective to be published on an official page. Last but not least, the chance to witness a youth exchange and listening young people sharing their views and concerns of the present world, there is much to hear and to learn from the youth.
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  13 Volunteering for theSports Festival in Cluj-Arena 12-16 June 2019 Cluj-Napoca During four days I volunteered at Sports Festival that took place in Cluj-Napoca, one of the biggest cities of Romania. The event’s purpose is to promote physical activity and a healthy lifestyle, by giving the participants the chance to try different sports. In fact, more than 30 sports were represented in this festival, which also brought tennis players such as Simona Halep, Marius Copil, Daniela Hantuchova and Fabio Fognini for a demonstrative match. My tasks were different every day. First step to integrate such event as a volunteer is to go to the first meeting, to learn more about the work, rules, guidelines to follow, etc. The meeting’s purpose is to prepare the volunteer for the different type of tasks and the environment they will encounter. In this case, the focus was on the 3rd day of the event when the tennis demonstrative match was going to take place, and they were expecting around 9000 people. 1st day - Logistics help in the beach volleyball court; 2nd day - Logistics help with outdoor Zumba dance; 3rd day - Logistics help in BT arena during the demonstrative tennis matches; 4th day - Logistics help during the cross marathon (5km and 10km).  Learning opportunity This was an opportunity again to meet new local volunteers, practice and learn more Romanian language with the volunteers and with the community as I had to interact with the participants in different occasions. Learn a bit more about the complex organization of such big event and its difficulties, as well as interacting with large crowds, which is not an easy task. I also learned more about the importance of sport in our lives and rediscovered my favorite sport.
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  14 Street Delivery Event 29-30June 2019 Baia Mare During three days I had a stand representing the association in the Street Delivery event, held in a park in Baia Mare. The event’s objective of this year was to promote literacy and the concept of Dadaism. Many groups and associations participated in this event, each one presenting different type of games and materials to interact with the community. As one of our project’s goals is to promote sports and I am a Portuguese volunteer, we decided to promote poetry and the poets from Portugal, as well as to make games playing with different words related to the volleyball sport. - Prepared two main games: to take out 5 words out of a box (all words related to volleyball) and write a poem with these words; to complete different Portuguese song lyrics by filling out the hidden words. - Presented a short museum of Portuguese literature, concretely - poetry, by presenting some of the most famous Portuguese poems translated in English and in Romanian, as well as the biographies of each poet.  Learning opportunity It was an opportunity to be in direct contact with the local community, by interacting with the participants in the event. It was also a challenge being alone with the stand during these days, thought I had some assistance from another organization that had a stand next to me. Yet I was the one talking with the visitors, explaining the games and helping them out. I learned not only how to organize a stand for such kind of event but also how to present the information in a pleasant and captivating way.
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  15 Celebrating the 100th anniversaryof Cluj-Napoca football team 12 July 2019 Cluj-Napoca This was a rather short event to volunteer for but an exciting one. We were celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Universitatea Cluj-Napoca club that decided to mark this date with a friendly match against the Greek football team, Paok Salonica. Once again I arrived one day before to attend the volunteering meeting, where the different tasks were explained to the group. - The first task was to help out people at the entrance of the stadium by indicating the directions of their chairs. - The second task consisted in, during the break, together with all the volunteers, gather in the middle of the stadium in a circle to take part in the activities celebrating the 100th anniversary of Cluj-Napoca team.  Learning opportunity An opportunity to meet new local volunteers and be again part of the sport volunteering spirit which is so great. Personally it was interesting to be in the field so close to the game and the players as I am also a football fan. It was good to practice again the Romanian language while trying to give indications to the people.
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  16 Joining Geentin (anotherNGO) in summer activities with kids 9-10 July 2019 - Oarța School 15-16 July 2019 - Bicaz School For two weeks, specifically a total of four days, I joined the Greentin organization to develop summer activities with their volunteers, in the village’s schools of Oarța and Bicaz. The games and the materials were prepared the day before together with Greentin volunteers, and then implemented in the schools. Below is a list with the type of games we played with the pupils that were coming during summer time to do creative activities with the volunteers. - In Oarța’s school we had a small group of pupils with various ages (from 9 to 13 years old). With this group we did few energizers, games with obstacles, a treasure hunt, played handball, charades, sang and dances songs, help the kids make a paper kite and teach them about the food pyramid, mainly the importance of healthy food vs. fast food. - In Bicaz’s school, we had a bigger group of pupils with very different ages (some were under 9 years old, other above 12 years old), we prepared different kind of games according to their ages. On the first day we had the opportunity to promote sports, specifically volleyball with two volleyball professional players, Andrei and Csaba from Știința Explorări, who joined us to teach the kids volley. We helped them organize the pupils in different groups to learn the steps (to serve, to block, to attack), and later in different teams to play one game all together. On the second day we did activities with them, including energizers, prison ball game, bowling using plastic bottles and a small ball, dancing traditional songs led by two older pupils, who were eager to teach us this specific dance.  Learning opportunity It was the first time for me doing activities with kids, so in the beginning it was challenging, but I learned from the other volunteers who were already used to make games with the pupils and copy their good examples and practices. I guess it is always a learning experience to work with kids, not only the first time, but every time we work with them as they demand our best, they want us to be creative and to engage them as much as possible, and we have to be flexible and improvise when needed. Some of these kids have never played volleyball before and this was a great opportunity for them to learn and to practice a new sport.
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  18 Basketball 3x3 challenge 19-21July 2019 Târgoviște In July I volunteered for a Basketball 3x3 competition in the city of Târgoviște, in the south of Romania. This was an event organized by “Be you” Association and powered by Meda Park. Initially my main task was to assist with the check-in of the players participating in the matches, but as there were already local volunteers assigned to this task, I suggested taking photos to the games. Although they had already some photographers they accepted my suggestion and I spent three days (from morning until evening) photographing the matches. There were a total of 200 games. - Took photos to the matches during the day, edited them later and sent to the Association “Be You” for publication in their official webpage.  Learning opportunity An opportunity to meet more local volunteers and another sport association’s work. A chance to practice sports photography, learned a few more tips and skills from another photographer on the court.
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  19 Volunteer exchange 05-15 November2019 Miercurea Ciuc A new initiative was presented to us - that was to make an exchange with other volunteers. Meaning, we would switch places with them, live in Miercurea Ciuc and work for their organization for 10 days and they would come to Baia Mare to live in our house and work for our association in the same period. The organization from Miercurea Cius is Young Europe’s Society. And that’s what happened. It was a very interesting change of places, to meet other volunteers, a new city and different kind of work and organization. It was also helpful to make an evaluation of our own work and also the association’s work and compare the differences. - The Association gave us the plan for the following days, which included activities with pupils from primary and secondary school; and to make a presentation about the ESC volunteering program and talk about our own experience in a youth exchange organized by the same NGO. - The first working day, after we planned the activities and gathered all materials needed from the office, we went to a school in Bilbor village 2h away from Miercurea Ciuc. First hour we did activities with a class that had pupils of around 14 years old; second hour we did activities with a class that had pupils of around 10 years old. - The second working day we went to another school to do activities with one class for two hours in a primary school with kids between 4 and 10 years old. - The third working day we went to the village of Bălan where the Youth Exchange - structure dialogue (under Key Action 3) took place, and where we shown our PowerPoint presentation, share our own volunteering experience and answer questions about ESC program. - On the forth working day we went to another primary school to also make activities with small kids between 6 and 10 years old, for two hours.  Learning opportunity The opportunity to work with different type of creative materials, such as a parachute and see the positive reaction of the children playing. Challenge to prepare activities for sport classes, which require movement. Prepare games to play indoors as well as outdoors, depending on the weather conditions.
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  21 Events and workshops
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  22 Museum’s Night 18 May2019 The Museums’ Night was an event promoted by the Bastionul Măcelarilor of Baia Mare, with an open art exposition with free entrance. In agreement with the museum our association took the initiative to prepare some games for the participants during the exposition. A total of four games were prepared for the visitors to play in groups, ruled with a score system and prizes in the end. - First game was for the participants to match flags, countries and capitals, a cardboard was prepared with photos of all the flags of EU for the participants to take separately the names of the countries and capitals and match them with the flags. - In the second game the participants needed to guess which monuments belong to each EU country, a map was presented and small figures of monuments were printed out for the participants to put on the map according to the country to which it belonged to. Also a list of monuments and its description was done for the participants to check afterwards. - The third game was about sports, the participants had to identify the sport, matching sport photos with descriptions; a sport from each country was selected for the game. - In the forth game participants had to answer questions about volleyball (rules; techniques; championships; volleyball in Romania), for each question there were multiple choices.
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  23 Picnic voluHUB withvolunteers from Constanța 18 June 2019 In the summer, our coordinator from “Yellow Shirts” association took the initiative to invite various associations from the city for a picnic to meet the volunteers that recently arrived in Baia Mare, and of one NGO from Constanța, that were travelling around Romania and had a stop in Baia Mare. One afternoon, together with my coordinator and other associations we gathered in one of the biggest parks of Baia Mare and participated in the picnic. It first started with an energizer, we sat down to share information about our projects and activities, and then played volleyball and blanket volleyball in the park.
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  24 Portuguese traditional festivities- “Arraial” 20 June 2019 This event was created together with three more Portuguese volunteers from three different associations (Greentin, YMCA and Somaschi) to promote Portuguese culture and traditions. More concretely to celebrate festivities that take place in the city of Porto in the month of June called “Festas de São João”, which is celebrated all over the streets of Porto with many decorations and people going out to enjoy the summer nights, dancing, eating traditional food and listening to popular music. Below is the list of all the activities done during the event: - The event started with a brief presentation of ourselves and an explanation about why and how these festivities are celebrated in the country; - Following a short quiz with 7 questions about fun facts of Portugal; - Then we did a role-play to present some of the most touristic places in Portugal, showing a map of the country with the places we were representing; - After we launched sky lanterns through the sky with the participants; - The traditional popular music started and we gave space for the people to go around the pub’s garden decorated according to Portuguese festivities, to visit the “Museum of Portugal” (that we prepared with short biographies of Portuguese figures, the history of “Fado” and translated poems and songs) and most importantly to actually taste Portuguese traditional food such as small coconut cakes, cream pastry, molotof cake, codfish, pork meat among others.
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  25 VoluHUB - anencounter of volunteers to talk about volunteering 15-18 August 2019 This was an event created for volunteers to discuss volunteering, again an initiative from our association “Yellow Shirts”. Volunteers from different parts of Romania and international volunteers participated in this event and took part in the following activities: - Sharing our passion for volunteering and motivations; - City tour around Baia Mare following a list of tasks to perform along the way; - Sharing stories from past experiences in other projects, events, youth exchanges, school/university exchanges, among others; - Defining volunteering and explaining what volunteering means to us; - Learning about the Youth Participation ladder; - Volunteering in Romania; - Sharing examples of good practices from our communities and organizations we know; - Making videos in different groups to promote volunteering in Romania; - Resources and opportunities (we checked a list of future opportunities for jobs, studies and volunteering) and also shared other opportunities we knew; - Learning and putting into practice the “dialogue method” that consists in sharing stories, experiences or an opinion in group without ever being interrupted; - At the end of each day we did an evaluation and provided feedback.
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  26 ActiveNoon (Sport event) 02October 2019 This event was created together with my two team members with the objective to promote sports, specifically volleyball and basketball. The main target was the local community and international volunteers, which also participated in our event. We started the event with a names game, followed by an energizer, after which we divided the participants into two different groups, one group to play basketball and another group to play volleyball. In the end, we split all the participants in two different teams to play volleyball.
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  27 Workshop “Mens Sana” 14-18October 2019 During these five days I hosted a workshop called “Mens sana in corporatist sano” (a healthy mind in a healthy corporatist). In the begining of each day we would make an energizer and/or team building game with the participants and then contnue with the activities. Below is a list of activities performed with the participants learning more about the importance of four major topics: mental health, nutrition, physical activity and happiness. - We dedicated one day just doing sport activities in outside field, playing basketball, volleyball, badminton, demonstration of martial arts including self-defense tactics performed by one of our team members in the association and a brief dance demonstration of hip-hop moves performed by me. - Divided the group in different teams, each one to plan and shoot a video on how to promote a healthy lifestyle, including movement and then to edit the video and watch it in the end. - Divided the group in 5 different teams, each to make a poster about a different topic: benefits of individual sports vs. team sports; happiness; mental health, nutrition and healthy lifestyle (connecting the importance of physical activity, mental health, good eating diet). After each poster presentation we presented the poster designed by our association summarizing the same information. - A list of ingredients of a Portuguese traditional dish was given to the participants to analyze each ingredient and understand why the recipe is healthy. - We sat in a round circle where participants had to share what makes them happy, also personal interests, hobbies and how they spend their free time. Asked the participants to share what new experiences they would like to have, particularly in Baia Mare while volunteering, in order to share contacts, places and ideas. - Divided the group in two different teams to apply the “Dialogue method” while answering questions about gratitude. - Participants wrote and shared on one poster different opportunities related to jobs, studies and volunteering for the future. Sharing knowledge and contacts with each other. - Participants filled out an Evaluation form in the end and also shared messages of appreciation. The messages were distributed per envelope (one envelope for each participant).
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  29 Other activities and events
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  30  Attending aDanish workshop organized by AIST - American School of Transylvania Association - 09 April 2019;  Attending a Polish event prepared by the association Team for Youth - 07 June 2019;  Attending a multicultural event organized by YMCA about the Basque country - 25 June 2019;  Attended a multicultural event organized by Team for Youth about Algeria country - 26 June 2019;  Attending a multicultural event about France organized by YMCA - 01 August 2019;  Attending an event about summer activities developed during a short term project by volunteers of AIST - 02 August 2019;  Attending Mythbusters event from Greentin association and taking photos to the participants and the experiences conducted during the event - 08 August 2019;  Participation and taking photos to FestivArt event organized by YMCA - 22 August 2019;  Attending an event organized by AIST about “Functional literacy challenge” - 09 September 2019;  Helping in the preparation and participation in the “Turkish Delights” event organized by the volunteers Baris and Batu from Yellow Shirts and also volunteers from Greentin and Somaschi NGOs. Also took photos to the event - 11 September 2019;  Attending AIST event about “Service opening and SWAP language” - 12 September 2019;  Attending AIST event about “Tolerance day” - 19 November 2019;  Attending AIST event about SWAP Scandinavian Language Event - 21 November 2019;  Attending AIST event about volunteering - 16 December 2019.
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  31 Thank you! Thank youto my association “Yellow Shirts”, coordinators, team members, flat mates, local and international volunteers, the community and all the people I had the privilege to meet and to learn with throughout the course of this project. All of them contributed for this life changing experience that I will never forget and that transformed me as a person. Hope to continue to do volunteering work locally and to be more involved in my community in the future.
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  This project isfinanced by the European Commission through the European Solidarity Corps programme. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.