Sign up for Experience 2010

Hello people!
You might remember me, handing out postcards from every breakfast and helding the Experience 2010 presentation.

It's a while ago, and maybe you forgot what and where. So here I'm telling you:

The week July 31. – August 7. 2010 will be the most sober week in the whole Europe. The yearly summer camp arranged by Active, will this year be held in Fredrikstad, Norway. Fredrikstad is a town in Norway, a bit south of Oslo. It’s said to have the best weather in Scandinavia, so it’s the perfect place to arrange a summer camp. The main base for the camp will be at a school, called Gudeberg skole, with a big, open landscape outside to our disposition.

Experience 2010 will also be the name of the congress this year, same date same place.

You can read more and sign up at our websites: www.experience2010.no!

But here comes the best part. I, Petter Holstad, will give you a free ice cream, if you from this date on (May 13), sign up to Experience 2010 and write "Petter ice" in the comment field on the registration form!

Here is my campain video:

And you can also join the Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Petters-Ice-Cream-Experience-2010-Campaign/113476965360663?

Looking forward to see you in Norway!

SecretSoberSociety in Facebook!

Secret sober society presents:

Movie project in Macedonia and the world wide web!



Join Emma's group here.

Why?

Diffrent alcohol secrets

nr 1 Calories:

one pint beer is more then 240 calories
1 dl wine is 70 calories
1 shot brandy (rakia or vodka etc 4cl) is around 90 calories
1 doughnout is 180 calories!
the more alcohol % the higher calorie %
and alcohol makes you more hungry.

Nr 2 Envoriment:
Somebody who knows exactly how much water it takes for one glass of beer was it 300 or 350?
atleast it is alot and this is yust the water damage.

Nr 3 Socilal:
Children family's society....

Nr 4 POWER:
Fear weapon and alcohol is the biggest tools of power and taking power from people!

Nr 5 money:
how much more you can do and travel for the money spent for alcohol.

Nr 6 health:
Someone knows more about the more then 60 diseases alcohol related?
+ al car accidents etc etc pga alcohol.

"There is no need to hide your sobriety 100% alcohol free!" Emma Oskarsson from Sweden.

Next Variant in Lithuania

I would like to write about the social project that I am participating in Lithuania.

"Next Variant" - is an independent, voluntary acting non-governmental organization that seeks to encourage and assist Lithuanian youth to set out clear and long life goals, much faster develop their personal skills,discover and achieve their full potential.

We „Next Variant“ pupils were given a task to make some sort of social project whether to visit the children‘s foster home, grandparents‘ home or just to arrange a kind of street campaign. So it was up to us what to do.

In order to get to know each other more there were made up teams of 5 to 6 pupils from different lecturers‘ groups ( in „Next Variant“ there are many lecturers who have their own groups of pupils and lead lectures to them separately from others in different places). The team I belonged decided to visit grandparents‘ hospital. Our mission was just to go there and visit grandparents. Even though nurses are very helpful to those old people but I tend to think that however they feel lack of communication. So we got there, chose a ward and started communicating with them, sharing our ideas about life ans so on. Some of grandparents were very talkative and ready to answer any kind of questions we gave, some of them were absolutely quite, reluctant to talk.

There were different types of patients. Some of them let's say were quite strong, some weren't able to care themselves. Even there were wards where you could here various strange sounds, voices. Overall it was beneficial experience. You understand that aging is inevitable process and we all will become old. The problem is that sometimes the young people do not give thought to it. We can't look at those old people casually, we must help them. When I looked at those grandparents I discovered that they are wonderful people. All in all, I assume that we accomplished our task, cleared grandparents' life. However, it's so great to do good jobs!



I from my own experience note that the youth upbringing process, particularly more important aspects of personality formation, of a clear and long-term life goals exodus, creative thinking, leadership skills, etc. our government and educational ministry pays too little attention. So that's way there is an organization "Next Variant" which is prepared to help 14-19 young people discover their life goals and purposefully achieve them. These people educate honest, self-minded, confident, self-responsible, creative and socially young people. They also teach the necessary skills to select and apply them in practice. All trainings are for free so anybody can attend them.

I started attending those lectures last year when I heard introductory lecture at my school. Personally it gave me a lot of benefit. I became more confident, responsible for myself, started managing my time, learned how to set out personal goals, developed my oratorical skills. In addition to that I started dreaming, seeing all the people and the world around me. I discovered the power of positive thinking and found out what a wonderful life is. Now I have strong belief that there are no boundaries, it only depends on what limits you will define yourself.

In fact my role in this organization is not only as a pupil cos I am also a volunteer. I work in the media team. We publish monthly magazine about organization's life including news from teams, what events has happened, interesting articles and information about new members who joined our collective. It's so wonderful to be among young active people, you meet new people, participate in various events, always have an opportunity to express your ideas and opinions. Work in a team is the most exciting part of our activity. The benefit of this is not only that others motivate you, encourage you to seek your best potential but it also widens your horizon, you get some specific knowledge how to behave in various life situations cos volunteers get special trainings and that is a kind of privilege.

Tadas from Lithuania.

Critcal Mass in Albania!

Hello You*th* are us!

I would like to share a great experience with you here!
Every last Friday of the month, 20-25 persons go for a nice Street Action in Tirana. I participate in this group of people.

And do you know what we exactly do?
We wear white hospital masks, get a bicycle, join each other at 18.00 in the same place, and go all around to the most frequented streets of Tirana..... Why?

In this way we make sensibilization to the others that the air is so much polluted and that there are no streets for bikes. This is a simple action that shows also how easily EVERYBODY can minimizes the Global Warming Effects.



This is happening in approximately 300 Countries of the World!
You are welcome in Albania for your contribution!
ps: It is really cool!

Lazjon from Albania

Bratislava seminar video

Took time, but now it is here!

15 nationalities, 7 days, countless smiles and hugs, new ideas and loads of motivation.
You(th) are us!

Download the video here

Let's Canoe To Norway!

Even though it's not my turn yet, I have to let you know about one awesome possibility to get to Experience 2010 in Norway (which I know you all want to) and to get active:

Some crazy folks from Germany and Switzerland don't feel like getting on a plane to get to Norway. We'd rather travel with style through Scandinavia - by canoe.

The plan is to start our journey in Hamburg on July 23rd by bus, to meet UNF in Helsingborg, to spend one night in IOGT-NTO's Folkhögskola Wendelsberg and to start paddling from Årjäng (Sweden) on the 25th. Then, on the 31st, we'll get back on the bus and be on our way to Active's summer camp Experience 2010 in Fredrikstad (Norway), where you can help to shape the future of the sobriety movement in both Active's and IOGT International's congress and take part in all kinds of creative activities, inspiring workshops and thought-provoking discussions.

After these two weeks we'll arrive back in Hamburg on the 8th of August in the late afternoon.

If you want to join this little adventure, you can travel to Hamburg and enjoy the all-inclusive package from there or you can join us somewhere on the way.

The price for the entire two weeks, incl. the camp fee, is greatly depending on the number of participants, but we're aiming for something around 420,- EUR (maybe even less, if enough people join and we get a few donations more).

Unfortunately the website for registration is in German only, but with the help of Google Translate and the info that Germans enter dates in the format of DD.MM.YYYY you should be able to register yourself for this active trip with Active folks here:

YES, I'M CRAZY IN THE COCONUT!

And one more info: This tour is only going to happen, if at least 25 people sign up and the canoe renter needs our confirmation A.S.A.P.! So ... are you in for it?

Hoping that you're just as crazy as them,

Rosi, Max and many other participants from Juvente Germany's congress

You can see, but do you understand?

25-31 October

Berlin, Germany

"You can see, but do you understand?"

Acive is going to do something that we have not done before! Next seminar will be organised in cooperation with visually impaired and blind people - even the application and program was written in cooperation. But why?

Quite often people do not know how to behave with disabled people, as they have no experience before. In most of the European countires, lack of experience and knowledge is the result of certain social systems that bring togehter the people with same disability and quite often these people do not feel confortable to leave this group to be randomly also a part of an average social group of young people. Additionaly, the prejudices are leading to the exclusion, because if a young person do not know how do behave while being in a same group with a disabled person, young people start avoiding this kind of situations. By gaining knowledge and personal experience on the topic of disability in today’s society, or moreover, by making friends with disabled people and vise versa, the prejudices will be decreased and there will be less cases social exclusion of some groups of young people.

Or should I just quote my blind friend...

Me: "Do you think, that you would change anything in your life, if you could see"

My friend: "Actually there's no difference, if I see or not. But it's needed to break the stereotypes personally for every single person - to represent myself as a totally normal person, who has a lot of different qualities and who also, by the way is blind - and to meet with all the people, I do not have time and energy for that.

Want to be in a PREP TEAM?

In the preparation team for the seminar, there will be 6 persons, 3 visually impaired persons and 3 persons from Active member organisations. The first preparation team member has been already chosen, Jürgen from Estonia, who has been a great help while writing the application and finding other cooperative organisations.

If you want to join Jürgen in the prep team, send a motivation letter to office@activeeurope.org

Being in preparation team means following:

• participating a 3-days prep team meeting in September in Sweden
• organising a very specail seminar, opportunity to bring new ideas and to create an unforgettable week for participants
• developing a program, organising the travel and accomodation for participants
• during the seminar being resposible for your tasks and being responsible for the general success of the seminar
• all the travel, accomodation and food costs for prep team are covered 100%

Deadline for motivation letters is the 31th of May

And here's the greeting by Jürgen:)

Today

After final party and a lots of " bye bye" hugs and tears conference room and participants are carrying pitiful sight- It was so sad to say good-bye.
Some left in the night, big group left straight after breakfast, some just woke up, some just went to sleep.
The rest of us, who are going away tomorrow, are brainstorming in groups about design for ACTIVE t-shirts and after lunch will prepare workshops for Norway camp (where we, by the way, all should meet again! And I am not even Petter, who is saying that!)

It was so nice to read the notes we left to each other! I would like to again and again tell you how much I enjoyed your company! You were(ARE) really great people! And I do believe that we can, ou yes WE CAN make big changes in things we don't really want to accept in this world. We all here were extremely high potential personalities- Lets use it in right way- remember, there are two kind of people- one are leading world, and other are running near by and shouting" were does this world lead to?"- in which category are you?

HUGS to everybody!
Call me if you are sad- brlbrl, laugh- free of charge-24hours 7days a week:)


Yours Sincerely,
Kristīne

Final day

Today was the final, ordinary day of the seminar. We started the day by reflecting what we had got from the seminar. This resulted in the quiz and several interesting performances. After several more evaluations we started the farewell party by watching pictures, we also got to know our secret friends which lead to many surprises. The participants recieved diplomas and the participants from the prep team gifts from the participants. And all agreed that it had been a wonderful seminar.

Stian aka "that guy" - Norway

Last day ...

Last day last day das last forever

Evaluation all day
Party all night

Free hugs for everyone and cookies on the table
What more to wish for?
Maybe that it really would last for at least one week more!

Motivated people
Motivated members in my organisation
a feeling that we can do it!

Planning for when we can meet next in Macedonia ofcourse!

Happy 3,14 day!

By Emma - Sweden/Macedonia

12th of March

It was a loooooong , full of fun, but also quite tiring day for us.We danced alot, blowed balloons alot, huged alot, singed alot, ran alot, jumped alot, drew alot, interwieved SOME, took photos alot, smiled alot, felt the cold alot,got attention alot , played games alot, laughed alot, got fresh air alot,got famous in Bratislava alot, did not sleep alot, finally got potatoes alot. Although we were so tired as we went to beds to sleep, we all were soooo happy and satisfied because of having such a productive day and participating to change the world.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glny4jSciVI

We Are The World

There comes a time
When we head a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can't go on
Pretneding day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of
God's great big family
And the truth, you know love is all we need

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart
So they'll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

When you're down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well, let us realize
That a change will only come
When we stand together as one

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Undina and Fatih ( From Latvia and Turkey)

Bratislava streetaction!!!

Today, after few hours of preparation, 50 crazy and sober people went to the city center of Bratislava and things started to happen.

It's too difficult to put it into the words, therefore it will be in photos:)

FREE YOUR MIND!!!




Patrick (Slovakia)



Kristine (Latvia) & Bledi (Albania)



Preparing the traditional dances

Ballons with human rights

Kristina (Slovakia) & Bledi (Macedonia)

Janika (Estonia) & Lazjon (Albania)

Gabriela (Sweden), Max (Germany), Eliina (Estonia), Rosi (Germany)



No drugs, more hugs

Max (Germany) & Hilde (Norway)

People getting ballons with human rights

Traditional dances from different countries

Traditional dances from different countries

Hilde (Norway)

Meelis (Estonia) & Helena (Sweden)

Kristine, you are the sunshine of my life!

From your secret friend who loves you and your contagious Latvian laughter :)

The Active Song

Many participants have heard the Active song for the first time today, so here are the lyrics for further practice:

Come and sit by me
Take my hand carefully
Dream my dream internationally
Make believe the world are we

One hand goes a yard
And twentyfive can't reach as far
As a million people's hands
Throughout the globe in every land

We can break the chain
We can ease somebody's pain
Our fight won't be in vain
And we'll do it again and again
(repeat 3. verse)

Come and sit by me
Take my hand carefully
Dream my dream internationally
Make believe the world are we

Today Pierre Andersson held a lecture on the implications of the alcohol industry's economic activities in developing countries.

Ideas for themes for the street action in Bratislava tomorrow

Happy Estonians

We're Watching You!

In Europe there are several networks and organisations that deal with alcohol policies and who work for the reduction of alcohol-related harm. The alcohol industry is strong, but they can't do whatever they want. If they are crossing a line, there will be repercussions. Because we are watching them.

But what about those parts of the world that do not have a long history of "alcohol culture"? Globalization is not passing them by and particularly developing countries with large populations are an interesting market for the alcohol industry. But they have no protective network to fall back on, no infrastructure of organisations that can have an eye on the moves the western alcohol giants make. And the alcohol industry is shamelessly abusing this by targetting these countries with aggressive marketing strategies.

So maybe it is time for us to start looking a bit further than our own boarders and to expand our networks. The alcohol industry is working hard to maintain a "clean" image in Europe, but on other continents they are breaching all the rules that they continuously claim to play by. And once again those people who are already born with less opportunities than others are the ones who have to suffer. Let's stop this vicious cycle and let the alcohol industry know: We're watching you!

(For further information on this topic watch the 17min documentary "Global Hangover" or go to ADD - Alcohol, Drugs and Development, Global Alcohol Policy Alliance and the WHO.)

A hug from me

Today we were discussing how to free our minds, because then the rest would follow. One idea was to hand out balloons with human rights, another one was to give out free hugs. The great thing about the concept of free hugs is that they are for free, but yet they have a great value. The advantages are that hugs are easy to give, not very time-consuming and it can be so nice. But a hug is a quite intimate action. Not everyone enjoys hugging (pressing their body against another, perhaps unknown, body). This is also a question of culture since some cultures are more huggy than others. To hug is to offer a part of your personality, but also to respect the other person's private space. More hugs to the people!

The impressions from international evenings

Country presentations was one of the interesting activities during the first day. There every country made a short presentation about itself and also gave us the opportunity to taste countries traditional food and snacks. For example we found out that in Island they have 5 different words for snow; that Serbians feed the whole word with raspberries; that Estonians have traditional dish - Kama; that they can dance great in Lithuania and in Turkey and much more.

Diversity rocks!

Photos from the international evening and the "culture day"

This is how every evening ends for some participants

Estonian food was popular
Lazjon from Albania surved trying Estonian national food "KAMA"

Vova from Ukraine in his national clothes (the shirt :) )

What is Macedonia not!

Yes, the people from Turkey, they danced!

And also did Norwegians:)

"Secret friends" were doing a good job!

...also video/photo recorders

"Sharing" new knowledge
"Sharing" new knowledge vol 2

"Cultural differences"

Intercultural dialogue 10.03.2010

Hi sweedy!

My name is Meelis and I come from Estonia. My nickname is Mel, like Mel Gibson but I am known also as Sweet-Beautiful-Lier... "Melman"

I am going to tell you about activity that we had today. Every country had to make up one question to other nationality. Since the topic was Intercultural dialogue our main goal was to develope our assertive behaviour. We learned how to create suitable evironment for asking and answering questions. Some questions were recorded so later could every country answer to certain question that was specifically made to them. I hope that someone puts these videos to youtube too so everyone can think about cultural differences. It was very interesting to discover how many misunderstanding is between different cultures but even more interesting was to find out reasons why people have these prejudices.

That is it for now. Enjoy the life - it is so beautiful!

Meelis Sikk
The King of Massage
+37258006283
meelis.sikk@gmail.com

Tadaaaa! 09.03

Okay, we´re officially the first group to post on this blog, and we must say it´s an honor to be the first to write about our experiences here.

After a yummy breakfast, all the participants found their way to the conference room, where fun was just waiting to explode! After the very entertaining opening ceremony, the prep team suggested that every participant should share their expectations of the seminar, other participants, and the prep team itself. And just seeing how many people want to cooperate and learn more about each other´s culture was an amazing feeling!

Other activities included more name-games (Bulldog!) and a roleplay regarding fake nationalities. Each participant had to pretend his nationality was different, and just by pretending to be someone else – everyone understood their own culture better!
My personal favorite was the “Secret Friend” activity, based on the popular “Secret Santa” game, where each participant had to draw a name from an envelope, and remember that person as their secret friend. They got the mission to make that person feel special, but they would have to be their SECRET friend, they cannot reveal their identity! I cannot wait to do something sweet for my secret friend, and I am also looking forward to seeing what my secret friend will do for me  (Alisa from Bosnia and Herzegovina)

Of all of the activities that we had today, I believe that my favourite one was the “Fake Nationalities” roleplay. My character was a rich Saudi-Arabian man. He did not communicate well with the other participants. This is due to the fact that he would hardly talk to women outside his family at all. As many of the participants are women, the character would not explain his views very well in the discussions.
Another interesting incident of the day was dinner. The reason for this was that there was not enough dinner. I could hardly notice that I had eaten any. Luckily for me, it turned out good in the end. Multiple kind people who were either not having dinner or were only eating parts of it supplied me with the food that I required.
Overall I would say that today has been a great day. (Sveinung from Norway)

First of all i am so pleased to be there. Because we are having good time, learning too much, having lots of friends...I think role play is the best part of the day. At first we learned about another culture then we role like them. It was really different experience for me. Because it was not like as me in my normal lifeWe learned about another culture and have guesses about life of them. (Pinar from Turkey)

I liked all the activities today. The activity I liked the most was “role play”. The only thing I didn`t like was that the “bulldog” was a little too long. Message to the prep team: keep it up (Edvina from Serbia)

It was a very nice day. There were too many new participants that I meet and I hope they will be my friends.Except the bulldog everything else was very good.It is the first day and we had a lot of fun,imagine the following days...(Bledi from Albania)

The Prep team is already there!

Helooo participants!

The prep team is already at the spot, preparing the last things before your arrival. We are glad that the weather is sunny even though the temperature is below 5 degrees. So dont forget to pack everything you need for the marvellous week.

We cant wait to meet you here.

with love

your five sweet fruits :)

Pierre Andersson talking about problems in developing world

My name is Pierre Andersson and I am a journalist and the editor in chief of Accent, a monthly magazine for all the members of Swedish IOGT-NTO.

I'm really looking forward to the Active seminar in Bratislava. I will talk about a subject that I have been working with quite intensely the last couple of years: Alcohol and development. Or the lack of development to be more correct.

In 2007 I wrote a book called Global Hangover about this subject. Last year I completed a short documentary with the same name, hopefully it will be possible to show it to you during the seminar.

Alcohol causes huge problems all over the world, but in developing countries the consequences are often even more serious than in our parts of the world. Combine this with an international alcohol industry that is desperately seeking new markets and we have a recipe for disaster.

See you in Bratislava!
/Pierre