To sum up the last few weeks

Well, to sum up the last few weeks, after I arrived to Manizales: it has been FANTASTIC, BUSY, INFORMATIVE, EXCITING and FUNNY!

We‘ve had meeting with every department at the office – to get some more knowledge about what they do and how they do it. It has been a lot of information to take, I have been really tired at times. But it has all been really interesting and useful, so I can take being tired for a while 

We`ve had two presentations. The first presentation was about the Red Cross Youth in Norway, and the second one was about the structures and processes of election in Red Cross Youth Norway.
In this last presentation we tried an activity which we learned at the youth camp in Norway this summer. I‘m not sure what to call it in English – but it‘s a way to make all the volunteers contribute, to participate in evaluating, and making decisions. We hung posters on the wall – posters with headlines like : PANICA, Rules of War, Sexual health etc. Each program in Red Cross Youth Manizales had their own poster. Then we told the volunteers to walk around in the room, take a look at the posters, and write down what they thought about the different topics – if something about it is good, something not that good, how they can work on it to make it better. It didn`t take long before all the volunteers were walking around, discussing, writing down their suggestions, ideas, meanings etc. Some of the posters were soon full, and we had to hang up additional posters.

After the acitivity we`ve gotten feedback from the volunteers – they say that the activity was really good, that it was good that all the different volunteers from the different programs participated in the same activity. I was so happy to see that the activity was a success!

Another good thing is that we now can use the posters to see where we might be able to contribute. And, the different programs can use the posters to sit down and discuss how to make the program and the organization even better.
( If you want to see photos from the activity, you can find them in my Norwegian blog - under “Presentasjon og “Påvirkningstorg”).

I would also like to tell you all about how nice people are here in Manizales! The volunteers are absolutely fantastic persons, all of them! I have a really nice boss, nice co-workers. Everything is really fantastic! Or as they say here ; Chevere!!  I really think there`s a possibility that I will make friends for life here. They all seem like genuine nice persons. (And most of them like dancing – which, for those of you who know me, fits me just perfectly!  I could dance every day, all day..!!)
I have met some persons who already have become very special to me, and you will hear more about them later on!!