Salamanca, End of the Road

So, our project is at the end. The final meeting of TOWEL - TOgether WE Learn project took place in Salamanca - Spain. 
The three project partners - Esperando Association Baia Mare (Romania), CRMF Salamanca, Polish Teachers Union Bialystok Branch - met again, for the last time during this Grundtvig Learning Partnership Project.
The Spanish hosts made a great job again. They have not only prepared very well the meeting, but also arranged for a wonderful visit to the State Reference Center for Alzheimer Salamanca. It was a a really great opportunity to visit  this state-of-the-art center where Alzheimer research and treatment is one step ahead of the world. Incredible place, fantastic facilities and extremely dedicated professionals - these are the ingredients of a model centre, visited and admired by Alzheimer specialists from all over the world. A pleasure for us and a unique opportunity to learn about Alzheimer, about the proper way to work with the patients and about the modern tools available (most of them would be extremely useful for any facility for disabled people).
Other highlight of the project meeting was the Conference on Unemployment in Disadvantaged Collectives, organized by CRMF. Lots of students attend it, but also many officials from the Government and state institutions. And with many interesting and well informed presentations, too!
We had also the special honor to award the diplomas to the CRMF students who worked in the TOWEL project. Some of them prepared the project logo, other prepared other materials for the project and the meetings, some of them filmed the work, some participated in the contests launched in the project by the Spanish partner, and others just participated in the learning events. And we have to admit that their work was very professional and we were impressed by the quality of the the products.
Well, and the final learning events on Salamanca, Spain, automotive history and the final talks on the final report and the project products concluded this visit. And the project is coming itself at the end, slowly but surely...

Welcome to Baia Mare! Welcome to Romania!

Well, it's time for the Romanian Grundtvig project meeting! And our guests, project partners from Spain and Poland, were here from October 2 until October 7.
We have had great, full days! We have learned together about Romanian traditions and culture, about our food and drinks, about the history of these places. We have seen Baia Mare and Maramures, with the wooden churches and monasteries, the wooden houses and gates, the Merry Cemetery in Sapanta, the traditional costumes and clothing, we have enjoyed traditional meals, we have tasted the Maramures hospitality and kindness.

And that was not all! We also have visited Esperando Day Care Centre for physical and mental rehabilitation of physically disabled people and talked to the staff. And we have had the opportunity to learn even more: we all took part in Esperando's International Conference on therapies for disabled people. One day filled with presentations from specialists from Romania, Hungary, Poland and Spain (each partner made a presentation, too!). But not the usual boring talk-talk-talk-no results Conference. Because every single presentation had to show also a practical demonstration of one therapy. Most of the presentations were live, on the spot, including with the disabled people! So, no wonder we have seen standing ovations, tears and happy faces!

And, of course, we have talked about the project, the job done so far and what is still to be done. And we do have a lot of work ahead us!








The third project meeting is now over.
What remains is the memory of a beautiful time spent with great friends, lots of things learned and a little bit of Romania in every one of the partners that were here.
For me, there is one more thing that has remained: the nice words of the foreign people about us and about our work, and how more people should have the chance to learn about the real Romania and how Romanians really are...
Daniel