Youth Clubs Part-2

As I've mentioned in the first part, I am doing a work related with youth. After the first post I had so many questions about what exactely am I doing here, well this post will explain everything now.

I am working in an organizations known as Ungdom og Fritid (Youth and Leisure).

U&F is a National Youth Club organization, founded in 1978 as "The national council for youth clubs".

Today as an Umbrella Organization we have other member-organization, 617 youth and juniorclubs in all districts of Norway. We also count with apprx. 2500 employees and 50 000 youth members within the clubs.

I've been writing so many things about youth clubs, but not everybody knows what is it about. For those who never heard about this, I can briefly say that a youth club is a place where you:

…always are welcome

…can meet friends

…don’t have to compete

…can get to know the youth culture

…a place you can get self-confidence

…a place where you can learn about democracy

…meet adults if you have problems or just want to talk

…don’t find drugs and alcohol

youth clubs in norway work based on a philosofy that this is a place where the youth has space to learn and have fun.

Russ (The Crazy Tradition in Norwegian High School)

The time we leave high school is one of the best in our lives. normally by this time some people take one of the most important decisions in their lives, they decide about their future.
But I am not writing this post to talk about decisions, but memories that we are going to carry for the rest of our lives. 
II believe that this moment marked and still marks the lives of many people, for example, I still remember my prom, a unique moment in which many things happened :).
But this is not the reason why I am writing this post. I am writing because I want to talk about a special tradition here in Norway, it's called RUSS.
According to wikipedia "The word russ is inherited from the Danish word rus, which as an abbreviation of Latin rusticus ("rural"), in former times used to ridicule new students at a university".

Every year before final exams, teenagers in Norway  purchase and decorate old school buses or vans and then drive around the country celebrating the end of school. 

 The Russ lasts for nearly a month and can cost each student up to 9,000 USD. Many teenagers save up for the occasion and some finagle corporate sponsorships.
 

Special facts about the Russ has to be mentioned, for example the clothes, Russ (youth taking part in the celebrations) are easily recognizable in April and May, when the russeknuter season is under way. They wear baggy trousers with big pockets, and a hat or cap with a long string at the end. The color of the overall should match the graduate's line of study: Red for courses that are geared towards higher education (this is the most common color), blue for courses in Business (also higher education in economics and management), black for Engineering (such as mechanics or electrics), and green for agricultural fields. Unfortunately I didn't see the last two colors.

But the most important items in the students' outfits are the hats, and the strings on them. The more knots and objects are attached the student's hat-string, the more respect the student is likely to get from his or her peers, because earning those decorations isn't easy.

 Each knot represented a prank played or a dare met during the month. These included running naked through the city center in daylight; biting the leg of a police officer then barking like a dog; and don't say a word for 24 hours.

Another essential accessory for every russ is a large quantity of Russ Cards. Russ cards (russekort) are mock business cards that the russ will hand out to anyone that asks for them. They contain a picture, contact details, and a slogan. Usually the picture is either a funny picture of the graduate him or herself, or a drawing, picture of a celebrity, or other funny picture. The name and contact details are usually spoofs, and the slogan is a joke.

On Norwegian Constitution Day on May 17th, a national holiday (also called National Day), the Russ marched in a parade to mark the end of their festivities.

Development Issues (Poverty)

People use to say and think that poverty is an issue from developing countries. Well I used to think the same, until February.
When I arrived here, I thought that perhaps I would be moving to one of "THE BEST" places in the world. The fact is that no matter how rich or poor are you, there will always be something that you miss. This is the POVERTY.
We can't ever compare two things completely different. Everybody has their needs, so the needs of someone can be different then your needs, it doesn't mean that you are best or worse than anybody, just that we are not identical.
During the preparatory seminar, we discussed a lot about poverty, once this project aims to share experiences, nothing better than tell everybody what would be the possible lacks that we (the Northern and Southern participants) might face on each others countries.
For a person coming from Africa, like me, maybe the first thing that he/she would talk would be the economy, it affects in every single ways the whole system in a country. I came to this conclusion after having a game on which we've split into groups to talk about poverty in our countries and in Norway. In the group there was a Filipino, a Kenyan, a Norwegian, a Salvadoran. Wow, from such a big list of nationalities, for sure we are going to get different opinions!! The conversation started and we found out that for all the countries except Norway the problems are alike, slightly differences were found, but just because of the politics applied in each country. The problems that we manage to find very quickly were in the Education, health and care and transport.
Conclusion, the developing countries has almost the same problems due to what they need, that most of the times is the same thing, MONEY.
Now the tricky question, WHAT AND HOW IS TO BE POOR IN NORWAY? To answer this question we took the most of the 20min given, and suddenly one member of the group said that poverty might be the fact that you don't own your house, you cannot afford a new Mac or iPhone, and we started laughing.
But wait, lets think together, in Norway the basic needs for a citizen are costed by the government, in some point everybody has the same conditions, that was the conclusion that we came up with.
After the 20 min, we had a general conversation, where every group had the opportunity to share.
and there we got stuck in the same question, because we thought that the idea of being unable to pay for an iPhone be considered as a sign of poverty was out of question. What was our surprise, it was a sign of poverty.
Final conclusion, poverty is not only not have money until the point of starvation, poverty is not only a economic issue,  poverty can also be the an social/emotional issue, poverty is the feeling or state of inadequacy.

MYAIESEC.path

Many people ask me what am I doing in Norway, but the better question is how did I get here.
Victor Hugo said once that "The future has many names: For the weak, it means the unattainable. For the fearful, it means the unknown. For the courageous, it means opportunity".

AIESEC MOZAMBIQUE

First time I heard about AIESEC for me was more an OPPORTUNITY to go abroad. Then I heard that AIESEC is not for everybody, but wait, AIESEC is meant to develop the leadership and engage the students/ graduate, so how can it not be for everybody?

Reflection

This answer I just found out now. You can only get this, when first you open yourself to the opportunities that come across and throw yourself to the life challenges. Apply to join AIESEC is challenging yourself, because you are diving into the unknown.
Can you imagine yourself very young and having opportunities that many only have after years and years of life?
Yes, this is me right now, I am leaving the best experience in my life.
But life is an endless learning, here I learnt a lesson that I will carry with me for the rest of my life, "doesn't matter WHAT you are doing but WHY are you doing" by Rehema Abdul.
Days passed and I kept looking for my whys until this weekend, we had a conference to talk about AIESEC NORGE's achievements and had the opportunity to make some reflections on our experience so far.

Out of this reflection different thoughts came out, but in the end all of them had one conclusion for me,  the reason I joined AIESEC and I came here is because every moment of my life has a WHY and FOR, so few years from now when I look back, I will see that my life was not in vain because while I was pursuing my personal achievements somehow I helped someone to have their own achievements. And this my dear, is the engine that has guided over the years AIESEC, the IMPACT that this experience have on people and the world.

FK Team

Life experience Pt.1

Do you know those times when every words in the world aren't enough to describe what you've been through?

Yes this was my last month.

I lived the most incredible experience that the whole internship could give me in only one month.

In this post I am going to show the moments that I lived and the people that contributed to make them real.

The Captain and Me Release concert

Team Support: this night everybody in the office decided to go out to our colleague's concert. It was the release of his band's new album. The idea was to show him that more than just colleagues we are a big family. Yes in my office I learnt that more than professional relationship a team needs the personal relationship, friendship and full support. Yes full support because in the next day we had a very tough day of work and even thus we stood there for him until the end :)

Moments of Joy

Friendship: days after, was my bursdag (birthday). For some reason I've been online on facebook until very late in the night, I started receiving congratulations one hour before I started celebrating here in Oslo, my friends from Mozambique showed me their attention from 0:00 (GMT+2) :)

I was the first arriving at the office, thinking that nobody would remember, my surprise was when my office mate greeted me cheerfully GRATULERER MED DAGEN (Happy Birthday) IVANDRO, hours later we had a cellebration in the office during the lunch time, they taught me the Norwegian way of sing at Bday parties, a very funny and beautiful moment.

At the end of the day, my housemates gave me a beautiful and crazy party at home...(Love u guys).

Special Thanks to Dan Gobe, Sheila Kagiri, Cynthia Olouasa, Rehema Abdul, Monypich Sou, Kimsor Oeng, Christel Villanger, Ungdom og Fritid (my work place)

Proudly Norwegian

The World Nordic Ski Championships 2011 (Oslo 2011)  are taking place here in Norway, and since it started I've been seeing lots of people painted and dressed with the flag colors (very good hein!!).
But this proudness is starting to kill me. Now I realized that they just forget at times that 11.4% of the population are imigrants grr.
I started my norwegian lessons few weeks ago, and I have been giving the first steps until now. I am so happy to finally see my beloved expression JEG SNAKKER NORSK( I speak norwegian) become reality.
Even though now I can say more than this, I still only knowing how to say things like "I HETER IVANDRO, HVORDAN GÅR DEG(my name is Ivandro, how is it going)", and it is not enough to start having decent conversations  :( !!
The problem is not what I learnt or not, but how people here forget that this is a new language for us.
I opened my bank account few days ago(finally), and the lady from the bank told me that they would start sending me letters in ENGLISH (woh-oooh).To my amazement, few days later I received a letter from the bank(they are really fast here lol), excited to see what was it, I tore the envelope dying of curiosity... guess what??.. I still curious :D on the top of the letter was written NEDERST PÅ SLIPPEN FINNES DIN PERSONLIGE KODE TIL DITT VISA PERSONKORT (bottom of the slip is your personal code to your VISA card person by Google Translate), I do not even dare to read the rest because even the GT would complain lol.
The question is that almost two weeks has gone and I still receiving letters in norwegian, and they are getting bigger and bigger(seems like they think I am learning more and more from each letter they send me lol).
Awhh, I almost forgot, can you imagine yourself being the only non norwegian among a bunch of them in a FORSPILL(way of socializing before going to the night) and suddently everybody starts cracking jokes in norwegian and laughing... I just go like...WHAAAT...and then if you are lucky, someone asks you how are your norwegian classes going??
I just have one thing to say VELDIG BRA(very good), now I am EN MOSAMBIKISKE STOLT NORSK(a mozambican proudly norwegian).

Youth Clubs Part-1

Finally I started the field work :).

After several researches, I had a brief idea of what I would find in a Youth Club (YC).

Well I will start thinking that I every time I assume being ready for something is a sign that I am totally wrong, because the idea that I had of a YC was a bit out of reality. I thought  it was a place where children and youth used to go just to keep themselves occupied and out of drugs and/or alcohol  just playing or something meaningless to society.

I was not completely wrong, but actually there is something more, and thats why now I became passionated for their work.

X-ray Painting in the Lobby

I have been to a YC called X-ray Ungdomskulturhus, there I met so many good people such as Gomi, Nastaran, Cliff, Farooq and Nora. With them, only in one day I managed to understand what is a YC and now I can say that IT'S A PLACE WHERE CREATIVITY IS GIVEN SPACE TO DEVELOP; music and dance are just examples of the possibilities.

They manage initiatives aiming an audience younger than 18 in order to take them off the streets and give them access to an arena where they can define themselves in society.

from http://downeu.com

Proving the quality of their work for Norwegian youth, we can find several artists such as the Madcon which has its origins in a YC and are now recognized for his talent.

One of the first impression that we have from Norwegian society is that they are very close to the unknown, but i realized that in the YC the "UNKNOWN" is welcome.

they encourage a culture of trust, so much the first day that felt like home, what struck memost was the fact that they have so many high-cost equipment, but even so they do not have any control mechanism (though this is quite normal here) in order to get young people to understand that there is no reason to steal what is there because everything belongs to them and they can use when they want.

For sure I have much to say about the great job done by this cool guys here.

Theory vs. Practice

Almost two months have past since I arrived in Norway.
I spent much time trying to create the most appropriate text to start writing my blog, but then I realized that the best I can do is write things as they come.
Everyday I wake up and think "Is this really happening", then I look out of the window and  the environment around me answers me "Yes".
Ok, two months past, I keep asking myself  "was it really what I was expecting for this Exchange", of course no.
We cannot predict the unknown, and maybe my mistake was try to predict things i'd never lived.
I  do not regret, on the contrary, I am very proud of this because I think it was important for me to grow and learn much more than what I thought I knew.
Even so, still funny to know that after so many seminars, and preparation, I assumed that I was ready but I was wrong.
There is a thing that we are not taught anywhere  "life experience". Now I agree when people say that to come in an Exchange Program is not all about willingness only but also strength, because we go through situations that we need both of them.


One of the moments that touched me most so far was in the Preparatory Course provided by FK Norway, when we had a session called Conflict Management.
Peter Harris, the guy who gave us an amazing lecture, told us that to live in societies, everybody creates masks for themselves, so when they feel out of their comfort zone, they can use them to protect themselves.
I know it can sound strange, but this is what we see when something either from the organization or participants goes wrong.
The biggest problem we are facing here out of  masks is the lack of communication.
As a brief summary, I dare myself to say that what we were taught is not being used by any party, apologies to those who feel offended, but this is reality.

Welcome Everybody

Dear friends, all of you are welcome to my Blog.
As you know, I'm very crazy and sometimes direct, so don't expect me to change this in here :) .
Well, talking a little bit more about this blog, it is a way that I found to release all thoughts that I
have in my mind. I will try to write every experience that I have here in Norway and I hope you
like it. If you don't agree with something, feel comfortable to show your opinion, but please respect
my own opinion :).

PS:Forgive me if at some points i misspell something, ingen er perfekte