Group Feedback/Evaluation of the Exchange

As the project was coming to an end, it was time for all the participants, workshop leaders and the organizing team to gather and talk about their experience on this exchange Paths to Each Other. It is crucial for the host organization, Youth Association Bistrica ob Sotli, to get some feedbacks from people who were involved in order to point out the strengths and weaknesses. Since the group had a really good chemistry, the organizers decided that the evaluation would be done verbally exclusively; everybody had the freedom to express themselves like they wanted. Undeniably, a negative comment, if stated in a respectful way, remains significant for the reason that it enables the organization to work on its flaws in order to make the next exchange project even more of a success. The discussion generally evolved around whether or not the participants’ expectations had been met and also their comments on the strong and weak points concerning the logistic, the activities and the people themselves.

When it comes to the logistic, it seems that the participants were quite impressed by the efficiency deployed by the Slovene team. Many participants felt that this exchange was not the first one hosted by the Youth Association of Bistrica ob Sotli. Indeed, this was the second one. They mention that the organizers knew where they were going, the schedule was well-established and all activities were properly prepared. In fact, having such a busy agenda also created a certain sense of over workload. In general, the participants were pleased by the amount of activities they could attend, however they would have also appreciated more space-in-between. In other words, they were asking for a bit more free time; the schedule has it was, demanded a lot of energy from them. The concern of the Slovene coordinators was to prevent the participants to get bored and disinterested in the project. Perhaps, a reasonable compromise would have been the same number of activities outside of the workshops like sports, trip, concerts, national evenings, exercises, etc. but offering some them as facultative events/activities. One clear demand that will be answered in the future is to shorten the workload in a day. In the beginning, activities were scheduled from 8h00 to 23h00, leaving insufficient rest time. Fortunately, at some point in the exchange the timetable was adjusted in order to offer more free time to the participants, especially in the morning which was greatly appreciated by the participants. At least the overwhelming majority agreed that it is better to have too much than too little. On a more technical level, it was also brought up during the meeting that the logistic should be more flexible. For instance, some participants would have appreciated to attend some workshops just for the fun of it, so without being formally enrolled. Hence in general, the participants were highly satisfied with the organization, since they could easily focus on the workshops rather than worrying about administrative details and inconsistencies in the programme.

Regarding the activities the comments were even more encouraging; workshop leaders and participants were both delighted by the outcome of the exchange. All six workshops got very positive feedbacks. Even though the composition of each workshop was random, it turned out that in each of them the synergy and the spirit was incredibly good. From the start not all participants had the same view about their workshop, nonetheless through the exchange the participants’ expectations converge. This resulted in a comfortable atmosphere for everybody while remaining productive. The participants were thrilled to have art as the core of each workshop; enabling them to show and express their creativity through an artistic mean. Most of them are impressed by their own progression in the project and feel they have acquired knowledge that can be used in their daily life. Certain participants discovered a talent in some workshop and hopefully they will keep up with their new hobby once back home. All of this has been made possible by the great communicative skills of the workshop leaders. Indeed, since the participants feel they have learnt something out of their activity, well this transpires the valuable teaching and pedagogical abilities of the Slovene workshop leaders. Concerning the national evenings, the participants felt it was an interesting way to share between each other their cultural differences. Having countries from all around Europe (Bulgaria, Estonia, Italy, Slovenia, Spain and Turkey) involved in the exchange permitted every person to discover various particularities about each nation. The informal model applied to these evenings revealed itself to be winning formula. The organizers always felt at ease and presented in an imaginative way their homeland. The other activities, namely the sport sessions, the morning exercises and the trip, were highly appreciated however they unnecessarily surcharged the schedule making it difficult to take part in all of them.

Finally, the central objective of the exchange came on the agenda of the evaluation; bonds created between the different groups. The organizers observed that the distinctive national groups rapidly blended in a homogeneous assemblage of young Europeans. Some participants even admitted having at first some worries about the language barrier, nonetheless their fears were quickly brought down because they saw the general good spirit and openness existing within the group. Many friendship have been created that with a bit of luck will survive through time and distance. In some cases, the attachment was even stronger than friendship! Nobody ever complained about someone else’s attitude or behaviour, everyone was a potential friend. Dissimilarities in mentalities and believes never jeopardized the unity of the gang, to put it simply; the “clash of civilizations” never happened. With today’s technologies, it is likely to see some friends keeping in touch long after the end of the exchange.

What the organizers are truly proud of is the uniform sense of satisfaction. Either girls or boys, Bulgarians, Estonians, Italians, Slovenes, Spanish or Turkish, regulars or freshmen in youth exchanges and despite of the age, the comments and feedbacks were the same whatever group looking at. All participants came to Bistrica ob Sotli in order to give you an idea about their own identity and they go back home with the sense of all having common grounds and aspirations. Every participant can be proud of what he or she accomplished in this wonderful “Paths to each other” club.
Written by Francis Robichaud