1. blog post ENG

Hi, it's Iva from Czech Republic! This is our first blog post here, so I would like to get straight to the point! A few weeks ago, together with a group of other Czechs and Estonians from the age of 13 to 19, I took part in an international seminar in Brno. Our task was to discover the meaning of "social innovation" as well as to show other people that there are several ways to start thinking of an innovation. As unclear as it sounds, it can just be a simple, yet great idea that can change someone’s life to the better and solve a problem. Looking back at my new experience I remember how we walked in the city getting to know new places and people, listening to their stories and debating. We also played games that helped us understand how to implement our ideas. 

We decided the best way would be to communicate via a Facebook page and a blog. We want to share our search process and also get inspired by you, our readers. Here we will post various interesting sources about social innovation and present our activities during the project. 

Here are a couple of moments from our week together:

• “Kick-off video” - our first attempt explaining the topic and motivating others to think about it.
• "Picture as a tool” - we had to find a place in our surroundings that communicates with our thoughts and be the speaker for it. These pictures will be shown on our Facebook page soon and will help you get to know us better!
• "Animation" - attempt to show the meaning of social innovation through some new techniques we learned. Students of Video Art who run a course called "Animation in Art" at a well known alternative cinema, the KinoArt movie theatre, showed us the basics of animation and assisted us to make our own.

• “CZ-EE evening” - we got to try a taste of Estonia and Czech Republic, from the culinary to the cultural perspective. 

• "Communication" - we met a lot of interesting people, and heard their stories. It was very inspiring to hear what they went through.

In the end of my post, I would like to say that this was a great opportunity for me and I am happy I took part! I would like to wish you all a great day and lots of creative ideas! May our project help you in your search for innovation.. so keep tuned and have fun! :)

This blog is a part of the project Empowering Youth To Become Social Innovators, realised under the Erasmus+ partnership programme. The project is coordinated by a Czech NGO DYNAMA, z.s., seated in Brno and an Estonian NGO Youth Club Active, seated in Tallinn. This project contributes to the development of non formal learning of the youth.