In the days between October 11-17, our two girls Victoria Dimova (volunteer) and Donka Hristova (youth worker) were on a youth exchange under the Erasmus+ program in sunny Barcelona. 32 young people from Spain, Portugal, Serbia and Bulgaria took part in the Urban Hero Adventure. The aim of this urban adventure is to engage, connect and empower young people through art to become responsible, active and critically aware citizens at local and European level. The program was full of various workshops, outdoor activities, intercultural dinners, reflections, visits and observations. Each day began with a group activity on the subway, where passengers were to be wished a good day. The group of youngsters had the chance to observe and even participate in a performance by Castellers. The Castellers are a group specializing in the local tradition of raising towers of people.. The youth also attended a parade from hell, with devils, fire, dragons and pyrotechnics – Correfoc.
Each of the young people could choose which hands-on workshop to take part in, which were music making, flash mob and street performance. All together finally joined forces in presenting a compilation of stage and musical works. An important part was also the production of fanzines, derived from the words fan and magazine and representing a periodical or non-periodical independent publication, created and written voluntarily by and for fans of a given topic.
In the intercultural evenings, each group represented their country as the youngsters enjoyed Portuguese-style chorizo and cheese, Spanish home-cooked food prepared with love, Serbian ajvar and rakiya, sweets from Gabrovo, all topped off with the beautiful singing voices of Viki and Hristina from the Bulgarian group.
