Historical location

Did you know youth club Josto is actually a small castle? The ‘Muggenberg’ is a place with a long history. In the city archives the first records date back to 1280. Throughout the years the building has provided numerous noble families with living quarters. Around the turn of the last century, a rich American rented the site and transformed the castle into a ‘kynodrome’; an organisation where people could gamble on dog races. During World War I the place kept on attracting mean spirited and vulgar individuals - and during World War II it served as a base camp for German officers. 

Despite this dark episode in the history of the little castle, it was eventually used for good purpose, nuns used the building as a school after the war had ended. The last decades the building has been functioning as the meeting point of young people from the surrounding area – and this week it expanded its horizon again by opening its doors to host young people from all over Europe. 

Dirty job

‘DJ Titus de Grote’ really got the crowd moving yesterday. Most of you have already noticed that Jelle – aka Tietjezz – has been working really hard all week, so we tought it was time for an interview.

Jelle, we have seen you do a lot work this week, but what is your funtion or position at Jeugdhuis Josto?

I am in charge of it all! (laughing) No, seriously, at the moment I am the main responsible of the daily routine at Jeugdhuis Josto, so it is my job to make sure that everybody else does his or her job properly. Besides that I see to it that everything stays under control, I prepare and hold meetings and when there is a conflict I have to find a solution. For me, it’s all about maintaining the overview and seeing the bigger picture.

The closing event of this week is tonight, do you have any advice for the young people tonight?

Well, I always lived by the ancient Greek motto ‘kuistdekakisoep’ – and that always work just fine for me. If anyone needs more wisdom or advice, they can also have a look on the Facebook-page of Jeugdhuis Josto.

Spanx!

The art of Poi

Saturday night fever! Almost our last evening, we have to celebrate this with a big party. But before we go to the party, Loredana and Mara from Romania had a big superprise for us. Both are members of the Crispus fire dancing crew and they know the secret art of Poi - a traditional ritual that originated in Hawaii and New Zeeland. We enjoyed a spectaculair show! Just take a look at the pictures beneath and on Flickr, it was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!!! These girls are on  fire..

City tour in Antwerp...

“Regen, regen en nog eens regen…” despite of the rain, the group wanted to know more about Antwerp. They were prepared with rain coats and colourful umbrellas to see the most fancy places in the city.

Have a look at the video and enjoy the tour!

'SWEAT'

What happens when you put five musicians in a rehearsel room, give them the instruments they need and tell them they should perform on stage within 48 hours? They start sweating.

Nathan (lead-singer, guitar), Aron (guitar), Jens (bass), Milly (keyboards), Oliver (drums) accepted the challenge. We went over to have a look and when we opened the door, it was like entering a sauna. Naked people everywhere!

When we tried to get an interview, they told us they had 'a really tight schedule' and were 'too busy for anything else besides playing music'. Being good reporters, we lounged around paparazzi-style for about fifteen minutes. We couldn't keep still - and had to start dancing. During the short period of time we were in there, they played a balanced mixture of modern classics, contemporary hits and a fair bit of rock 'n roll.

After our little dancing session, we tried to get one of them in front of our camera, but they kicked us out. Attitude, anyone? While they were pushing us out of the door, we caught Nathan saying: 'Djeeezus. There is sweat all over the place'. A new band is born!

Everyone is invited to the first performance of 'SWEAT', tomorrow at 8pm in Den Eglantier.

Don't forget your dancing shoes!

Interview with Stijn Belmans, coordinator of the project

Do you want to know when started the idea of this international project?  Stijn Belmans, the coordinator of the exhange program tells us. Look at the video!!

Exploring Europe

Žiga (24) from Zagorje Ob Savi  graduated as a post technology engineer one year ago. He worked as a mailman for a while and wants to go into real estate later on. Beside these professional activities, he volunteers at their local youth club Mc Zos.

Žiga, how did you end up here?

All the Slovenian people that are here in Antwerp, are part of the same circle of friends that volunteer at the local youth club. One of them proposed to participate in this project a couple of months ago, so here we are! I have some free time in between two jobs right now, so the timing was perfect for a new experience.

A new experience? So this is the first time you participate in an international exchange program. What motivated you to take part in this project?

There are several reasons. It is a combination of having FUN, seeing a new country, getting to know the culture, meeting new people and improving my language skills. I really want to explore Europe.

Slovenia joined the EU in 2004. Have you noticed any changes in your country since then?

Yes, a lot of things have changed. We started using the euro as a currency on the first of January 2007. Since then the prices have doubled, but the wages remained the same. That is one of the downsides, but there are a lot of positive aspects as well. We have a lot more opportunities to travel now, since the borders are open. And that allows us to participate in projects like this one.

Have you made any new friends already?

I hope so! (Silence. Smiles dreamingly..) That is one of the best parts of cultural exchange programs such as this one: I can invite people I really connect with to Slovenia to guide them around – and I hope I will get the chance to visit some of the friends I made here in their country.

Ok. Good luck with that and have fun!

Discover the groove

As you could read below, the creativity group got a dance initiation a couple of days ago. For the occasion Formaat contacted Youssef, a member of the ‘Let’s Go Urban’ dance squad. This seventeen year old dancer helped everyone of the group to take the first steps on the dance floor. ‘Dancing is in my genes’, Youssef explained us. ‘My brother was a dancer as well and until I was five years old, I always joined him to all the events. This made me discover the groove in my body, heart and soul.’

Some of us had difficulties to discover the dance groove in their own body. Nevertheless, everyone did the best they could . The activity ended with a jam session: the entire group stood in a circle and one by one the participants were invited to show their best moves. Thanks for the encouragements Youssef!

Creative talent.

We caught Oliver playing around with photoshop around midnight. There is a workaholic in the creativity team! Have a look at some of his previous work ! Here you can find his personal website - and he also participated in the creation of the stopmotion movie below. Really curious what he will present us on Sunday, because this tastes like more.

To do or not to do...

It was a long day for the event management team. The weekend is coming and they still have to work hard...

For that reason the trainers decided to discuss with the team about the final event and to divide them in 4 groups (social equality and art, music/talent, games and "ecological hats"). 

They were working on the process, the logistic, de public relations and the financial issues, trying to build up a "to do list" and finding a team leader that is going to present the activities for the weekend. 

The trainers are really happy how things are going on. They have seen that they are trying to negociate the budget within their needs like a workteam in a successful way. There is still a lot to do, however: buy all the material, find a suitable band for... dancing and having fun, build up the stage, arrange the catering and... so on!!

Here, we have a picture of the event management team trainers. You can see their funny and happy faces. Do you think they will keep the smile after tomorrow??

From the left to the right we have... Anja Van den Durpel (Belgium), Nur Yamaç (Turkey), Peter Wood (England) and Chelsea Renehan (England).

Regen, regen en nog eens regen

Paola (Italy) seems to really love the Belgian weather.

Work in progress

Some secrets of our logistic team...

One of the things that it’s working best during this week is our logistic team. Our way of being grateful to them for their work is revealing all their secrets! 

There are 13 members in the team: Hans (coordinator), Roeland (cook), Bart, Ben, Sarah, Tom, Joyce, Jan, Jane, Luc, Titjezz, Sylvia and Wouter. They are so happy working together because they are always joking and, until now, they haven’t had any serious problem. “We are always fighting and having fun at the same time”, they joke. 

Some of the most funny anecdotes they remember are, for example, when Titjezz threw some whipped cream in Bart’s head and when they found a potato that looked like a chicken wing!

Maybe one of the most interesting secrets of the logistic team is how they manage to plan the meals so they don't have to throw too much food away. And… soup is the answer! . “As we had leftovers of carrots from one dinner, we cooked a carrot soup; and we did the same with cauliflowers”, they confessed.

They all agree that the most disgusting task is cleaning the toilets. Actualy, they are not very happy with the participants in this sense. “People don’t respect the “rules” and there’s too much shit to clean!”, they complain. 

About watching at night, surprisingly they haven’t punished anybody until now. “The youngsters only wake up to smoke a cigarette and after that they go back to sleep”, they tell us. Maybe because of that Jan loves so much this task that he did it for 2 consecutive days without sleeping!

Their work in numbers:

- How many kilos of potatoes have you cooked? 100 kilos.

- How many dishes have you cleaned? They do the washing up 3 times per day (20 till now); and every time they have to wash 70 pieces of everything (dishes, glasses, spoons…).

- How many liters of coffee have they made? 210 liters (35 per day).

- How often do they clean the toilets? Once per day.

- How many toilet paper rolls have we spent? 150 (25 per day).

- How much cleaning product? 1 bottle until now.

- How many tents did they built up? 30.

- How long do they rest? About 3 hours per day.

- How many “injured” people do we have until now? Only one, in the kitchen (Hans!).

- How much food have they thrown away? Only macaroni we ate the first day.

The communication team

Now the project AEYC is halfway, we want to thank everyone who is reading our blog. It means a lot to us that people are interested in what is going on here in Josto. 

 

For this kind of project, a lot of people are involved. You already met the logistic team, the trainers and some participants. But now it’s time to introduce you to the people behind the blogs, the pictures and the movies. It’s a very big communication team, so let’s start…

First of all you have Lotte. Lotte is ‘the big chief’ of our team. She is the coordinator and motivates us to write and learn. She also doesn’t like to pose for photos, but we managed to get her on camera.

Lotte

Then you have four Belgian people: Thomas, Goele, Bert en Ine. Thomas is the intelligent guy who writes the ‘heavy stuff’ on the blog and takes some pictures. Ine is in charge of the movies, after Bert learned her how to do it. She is also writing for the blog (like she is doing now, oow yeah J). Goele is our (photo)camera girl. She also gives head massages when you are tired.

Ine

Goele

Thomas

Bert (of toch niet?)

Four other girls who joined our team, come from another country. They are staying here in Belgium for a couple of months, so you can also call them “EVS’ers”. First, you have Paola. She is a girl from Italy. She is learning Dutch and seems to be pretty good at it. The sentence “Ik heb geen horloge” (or “I don’t have a watch”) is her favourite. Eszter from Hungary is also learning  Dutch. Her impression of Belgium: “regen, regen en nog eens regen” (or: rain, rain and more rain”) and also succeeds in  asking the way to the cathedral. Beatriz and Sabela are from Spain. The two girls haven’t ridden the bicycle for more than ten years. Now they are in Belgium, it’s hard for them to learn to ride it again. Beatriz also told me that she really doesn’t like chocolate, and Sabela doesn’t like French fries. They still need to learn a lot! 

Paola

 

 

Sabela

Beatriz

Eszter

Action !

Thursday; a brand new day, a brand new challenge for the young people!

The creativity team went to Kavka again, where they were divided into groups.  Two experts were asked to give the young people a nice workshop.

One group started with some dancing lessons. After a quick warm-up and stretching exercises, they were ready for their first dance moves. Most participants were all sweaty and tired after just five minutes, but the dancing teacher showed no mercy! After two hours of hard work, the young people could perform a little dance. Nice work guys!

The other group started the day with an improvisation workshop. The baseline was to think out of the box, to push their boundaries and of course to have a lot of fun! They discovered that Britney Spears killed someone with a fire extinguisher in the woods and that everyone picks his nose while no one is watching. Just so you know…

In the afternoon, the first group went to the workshop improvisation and the other way around. The young people gave a lot of energy and so the experts were satisfied with the results!

Stoofvlees-fun from Ireland

Sinaasappelsap en winkel. These are the first Belgian words that Isolde (16) and Nicholas (17) noted in Antwerp. The two Irish students said, their first impression about the group is very good, cause they met many open and friendly people here.

They are interested in the event management, that’s why they chose this training:

- I am happy with this project, because I can learn new things and I meet new people from different countries, I like to know new cultures, commons, foods… I found the training very interesting, I enjoyed the teambuilding, I like the challenges. This is my only holiday this summer, but I like to spend it this way.

Althought many foreigner suffer from the rainy weather in Belgium, the two Irish youngsters enjoyed it, because the climate is similar in Ireland.
- Finally there are some sunny days in my country this week, and now I am here, but I don’t regret it, the new friends and the experience compensate it… - Nicholas told us.

And how did they like the Belgian food? Isolde and Nicholas tried the “stoofvlees met frietjes”
- Delicious! Really! We like this “stew à la Belgian”...

I love you, honey!

"I love you, honey! I love you too, but I can't smile!" The creativity group visited yesterday evening Scheld'apen in Fort 8, where some artists are living and working this year. The activity started with two revitalizing games and then, they enjoyed a guided tour through the fort.

During the visit, some of the youngsters played with a band that was practising in one of the rooms. And finally, they participated in another game with the collaboration of the artists.

Luckily, they didn't find any bats there...

Some inspiration

This morning the event management team visited youth center MSC Ahlan (“Welcome” in Arabic). It is hosted by the Arabic community, but apart from the colourful tiles around the bar, it doesn't look so different from many other European youth centres. Sport is the most popular activity here, volunteer Shakerullah told us while showing us the gym. But many kids also come here to learn Arabic,  to play Counterstrike in the fully equiped computer room, or simply to meet with friends and play some pool in the central hall. The key to MSC Ahlan’s success is their cooperation with other organisations, with the city and with schools. “If you’re not open to the community and to what’s out there, you don’t stay open for fifteen years like we have”, Shaker says. “Everyone is welcome in Ahlan, and we have volunteers and kids from all kinds of nationalities.”

Great, but how do we start organising our own event? Sarah from Den Eglantier has more than enough experience with that, setting up parties and gigs for a center that attracts over 10.000 visitors each year. The group told her that event management works differently in every country. In some countries, the ideas come from the youngsters, in others, the centre is in charge; and some just improvise with whatever comes up. But no matter how you work, Sarah told us, you have to have a strategy. Start with a brainstorm (the Walt Disney-method, anyone?), establish a timeline, work out a financial plan. Don’t forget a promotion strategy: a good event needs more than posters and leaflets these days! Oh, and always have an evaluation afterwards, to avoid making the same mistake twice.

The group grew a bit nervous under all these tips. So many things to do, and the final event is only three days away! Sarah: “No need to worry, I organised my first party in two weeks and it was a success.” Since Den Eglantier is the place to be for the final event, the group could fire away with questions. Is there security? How much can we charge for a beer? How much do we have to pay? Some participants tested their negotiation skills, but to not much avail. Time to start organising! “I’m not worried”, says Caoimhe, ”we’ll get it done by Sunday!”

But maybe take a powernap first…

Hit me baby, one more time

The country that has the most hits (pageviews) on this blog at the end of the project wins a nice surprise. So hit me baby, one more time!

For the moment the Slovenians are at the top with 109 hits.

Comfort zone ?

During the afternoon, everyone of the creativity team was challenged to leave his or her comfort zone. Creativity is all about thinking outside of the box, exploring new territory and pushing boundaries.

The team was randomly split up in four different groups. Each of those groups got an assignment: one of them had to invent a new game, another one had to wiggle together a new dancestyle, a third group experimented with culinary ingredients and the last group.. well, euuuhr, yeah.. they practised real hard to become Belgium's next musical sensation.

After a practice round on the courtyard of youth centre Kavka, all of them hit the streets of Antwerp to show their accomplishments to a larger audience and performed together.

While the musicians where playing their brand new musical compositions at the main shopping street in Antwerp, this journalist overheard a conversation between bystanders. 'This band could become the next Front 242!'. Stay tuned for more news about the next industrial cultband.

The dancemoves worked so inspiring that some people from other groups couldn't keep still and joined the newly formed dance squad, while a couple of meters further people where crowding around to see one of the most original new games of the year. While easedropping at the trainers evaluation meeting, we caught one of the trainers say: "The game they invented was so much fun that I wrote down the rules - I'll be using it at other seminars in the future". Talk about a compliment.

Huuuuuummmmm...

A compilation of the footage from the last 24 hours.

And no - we are not a sect.

.. or are we?

Eat this !

While all the participants are away for the day, the logistics team keeps on working at the campsite. Our reporter followed them for a day, click on the movie above for an exlusive peak behind the scenes.

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

No success without communication

Challenge and teambuilding were the keywords today. The event management team started the day a bit sleepy, but a quick "screaming-exercise" woke them up in a good mood. During the day everybody needed their personal skills to complete the tasks as a team.  They had to work together to complete a huge-puzzle or find their way trough a mine field (not a real one!) - and the extrem rope-net became the hardest challenge of the day for all the small teams.

In the afternoon the teambuilding was the biggest assignment: every team created a special flying vehicle to complete a difficult mission: try to save an egg that was thrown out of a window. All the groups believed strongly in their constuction, but only one team could save the egg. Congrats!


At the end of the day the youngsters had to start to create their own ideas to improve their management abilities. They were divided into two groups to invent new games and their showed their imagination, fantasy, creativity - and humor.

Language differences and cultural hindrances couldn't obstruct their enthusiasm. They conquered the difficulties with cooperation, discussion and all sorts of communication. A great example for everyone. Keep up the good work people!