Five team leaders and a facilitator from different organisations and countries of Malta, Latvia, Romania, Lithuania and Greece joins Advanced Planning Visit Guide to Know You What co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union at Marsaxlokk Youth Activity Center, Malta on July 27 to 30, 2023. Proutist Universal Malta representative Shambhu Sharan organises the APV meeting and presented the Youthpass to the participants after the meeting. Team leaders discuss and plan for Erasmus+ Youth Exchange during the Erasmus+ Advance Planning Visit Meeting .
Testimonial of Olesja Garjutkina written on August 1, 2023
“These four days mixed the most different people and made us a family. We laughed, we cried, we worked together on the project in September [17-27, 2023] and explored Malta on the way. Malta is a beautiful country with amazing landscapes and culture, and exploring it with the people you love made the experience even better. Nastya [Anastasija Ladkova] was a true leader-mom, taking care of everyone, making sure everyone ate and didn’t get sunburnt during the beach visits. David [Grima] with his charisma could light the room up – I will never forget our rides, listening to Taylor Swift. Marius [Kazakevicius] was the best communication partner – we always had something to talk or laugh about. He also managed to capture the moments when our group was experiencing core moments. Christine [kyriaki Dede] was the sunshine of our small group, who supported all our crazy ideas during the APV [Advance Planning Visit] and was the mastermind of our APV jokes. And Laura Bianca Achim was really organised and helped us a lot with the agenda. I truly can’t describe the feeling that I have right now – on one hand saying goodbye was tough – I still watch the photos and videos, feeling sad that it ended. On the other hand, I will be looking forward to seeing everyone in September and meeting even more new people around!”
Testimonials from APV participant Marius Kazakevičius
“It was my first time in APV (Advance Planning Visit) and I had a wonderful time and experience there in Malta. All team leaders from different countries and organizers were very friendly, supportive and warm. Spending time with them was super fun and productive. Four days passed very quickly, but in that time we became very close with each other. We had a super productive time together, brainstorming ideas and planning things for our upcoming Erasmus+ youth exchange project. And of course we had an amazing time exploring Malta and getting to know about Malta’s culture and tasting traditional food. Overall, I’m super happy that I went to this project and met such amazing people there. I’m looking forward to meeting these lovely people again in our upcoming youth exchange project in September. See you soon!”
Christina Kyriaki Dede from Greece
“The APV Meeting in Marsaxlokk, Malta was a very fruitful experience for me, both personally and professionally. Not only did I get the chance to enhance my communication and organizational skills, I had the amazing opportunity to meet new people, with whom I deeply connected to! We manage to divide our time efficiently, achieving the completion of the meeting’s duties and having striking conversations, but also, equally importantly, to explore and see Malta and its magnificent culture. Warm and kind people, beautiful places, sharing our cultures with each other, our food, our ideas, moments of fun and laughter, sharing our days and our friendship. Truly, I am forever grateful for the opportunity and for the connections I made there. Thank you.”
“This was my first experience in participating and leading Advance Planning Visit(APV) and I think that it was really successful. I was very lucky to have such supporting and open group, our discussions went really great, found loads of information about sex education from different aspects and experiences. Of course our main goal was to plan the details about Youth Exchange in September, but we also had a lot of personal conversations besides the topic of the project. Even tho i was really worried about me being in the leader role and the main source of information, once i met the group online and even more after we met in real life in Malta, i calmed down a little, because i felt huge support from everyone and everyone was willing to help and be there through tough times as well.
We explored part of the Malta as well, saw the beautiful architecture which is completely different than in our countries, ate local food and got to take a lot of photos, personally it made me more confident, since I now know that it is really easy to communicate with locals, since most of them know English and are really open and willing to help i fit is needed. Although the weather was sometimes really torturing us because of how hot it was, we had fun exploring the beaches as well. We had fun, we had lots of laugh, some stress and TONS of amazing bonding moments. I want to say thank you to all the representatives from each of the country groups for everything you have done for the project and for all the support along the way and i can’t wait to see the fruit of my work in September when i’ll see the group of 30 people in real life and explore Sex Education topic with all of them! And maybe even change someones life a little bit.”
– Anastasia Ladkova from Latvia
