On the past 24th of March, AEGEE-Chişinău organised a run which involved not just students and teenagers but people of all ages. Here you can find all pictures of this very successful event. We interviewed Nadejda Hadjivu, from the Moldovan local, who told us more about it.

The AEGEEan: Can you tell us something about the “Neon Night Run”? Why is there a word “Neon” in the title of the event?

Nadejda Hadjivu, AEGEE-Chişinău: Neon Night was one of our older ideas that we decided to promote now and create such a unique event that had a great impact on all participants. Neon because it took place in the evening, as it was dark already and a Neon bracelet made the difference. Fun run, neon lights around accompanied by rain.

Why did you organise this event? What was its aim?

The main aim was to gather as many people as possible, to run together and to promote a healthy lifestyle in our network.

How could a students’ association organise an event that attracted also workers and citizens?

We created and promoted the event on Facebook and different media sites, everybody could participate (we even mentioned that in the description of the event). We encourage everybody to keep themselves healthy and in shape, not only the youngsters but also the workers and older people- one can run at any age.

Did you receive a contribution from any sponsorship? 

We had as a media partner, Sporter and Aqua Unica, who provided hydration throughout the entire event.

Did many participants enjoy the run? Were there any requirements to take part in it?

We had around 300 or even more runners. There were no requirements at all (only to have appropriate clothing and shoes for the run).

Can you tell us who the organisers were?

Nadejda Hadjivu, Ana Gancearuc, IX Dan, Aliona Iorgov and the local itself, everybody was involved as much as possible.

Could you get any prize in this competition?

This was not a competition, we run all together, the distance was five kilometres around the lake.

Why did you choose Valea Morilor as location?

Valea Morilor was perfect as a location, as it is situated in the city centre.  There is a beautiful lake and it was also easy to measure, two circles around the lake made the five kilometres distance we had planned. It was easy to locate and everybody usually likes to go there for a walk or a run at the weekend.

Do you think you will propose this event again?

We saw that this made a big impact locally. Many people asked for a second edition and we are definitely going to organise it again, sometime in the summer.

Written by Matteo Lai, AEGEE-Cagliari

Healthy food means wellness and happiness. That is why our network has been concerned about this topic since 2012, when the Health4Youth (H4Y) project was founded. This initiative, aimed to make young people aware about the importance of a healthy lifestyle, gained a lot of success and it is proud to introduce its second generation.

The Health4Youth, estabilished in 2012, is a project of AEGEE-Europe oriented to inform youngsters through non-formal education techinques (such as conferences, training courses, exchanges and seminars) about the importance of a healthy lifestyle starting from a balanced diet up to a sufficient physical exercise.
The first generation that represented this project reached important goals, that is why the AEGEEan is proud to introduce the second edition of H4Y with its new team: Joanna Pankowska, AEGEE-Warszawa (Project Manager), Marina Boychuk, AEGEE-Warszawa (Secretary), Alfio Bonaccorsi, AEGEE-Catania (Content Manager), Barbara Anžič, AEGEE-Ljubljana (Event Manager), Christian Spagnol, AEGEE-Udine (Event Manager), Sylwia Lelonek, AEGEE-Wrocław (Event Manager), Mar Valero Mas, AEGEE-Alicante (Impact Measurement Responsible)
e Melani Kalev, AEGEE-Paris (Public Relations Responsible).

These eight guys come from different countries and academic backgrounds, but they all share the interest for the ‘healthy lifestyle’ topic and the idea that “healthy does not mean ‘eating only carrots’ or ‘doing sports 24/7’. If your body is fit but your mind is not, and vice versa, you cannot really call it being healthy. That is why, one of the topics we will focus on is proper relaxation, to keep away bad vibes, to have energy to do the things you love to do, to have a positive outlook on life”, they state. These words underline the real goal of this project and its members, which doesn’t focus only on physical wellness, but also on psychological one. This concept was actually expressed a long time ago in a latin aforism of the poet Decimo Giunio Giovenale: “mens sana in corpore sano” (translation: a sound mind in a sound body).

The second generation of Health4Youth is really motivated to make this edition of the project a real success by following the former team’s footsteps. That is to say learning from their strenghts and their experience, but also by introducing new fresh ideas: are you curious about the future plans of Joanna Pankowska’s crew? Well you need to be patient because the topics of the second edition of H4Y are still TOP SECRET: do not worry they will be revealed soon! What we do know is that the team is looking for a really motivated new member for an important task: the Fundraising manager position.

So if you are interested to fill this position or simply to get in touch with the H4Y team and be updated about their activities, send them an e-mail at health4youth@aegee.org or follow them on Facebook.

Written by Larisa Smajlagic, AEGEE-Verona

Thanks to the Portuguese National Youth Council (Conselho Nacional de Juventude) 25 Europeans were able to gather in the charming city of Lisbon to learn how to cook healthily. Besides the Portuguese, Youth Councils from three other countries took part in this training course: Romania, Italy and Greece.  Zlatko Djordjevic, content manager of the Health4Youth project, was there as well and this is his report. 

Only one of the delicious results

Whenever we start thinking about healthy food, our very first thoughts go to fruits, vegetables, fish… But how often do we  think of how to prepare them? How much the preparation methods can influence the nutritional composition of the fish, vegetables, fruits? These are the questions that we tried to find answers to.

The participants were divided into six teams, and each had a task: to prepare one course for lunch, either soup, salad, meat, fish, dessert or bread. We received the recipes and our goal was to prepare it with a low budget, and in an easy and healthy way!

They all started from the beginning: learn how to choose good food! So we visited the Market of  the 31^st of January (Mercado de 31 de Janeiro). The chefs from the famous Fabian Bernardino’s team “Travel & Flavours” were there for us! They taught us how we can distinguish if the fish is fresh or not – for example by observing the colour of the fish’s eyes and gills, and also by checking if the scales are jelly or smooth.

Concentration from the participants

When we bought all we needed, our next step was to learn how to cut the food in the most practical way and in the same time with the lowest possibility to get injured. A lot of techniques were presented to us, and none of us knew of them before! The cooking was always taking a lot of time, but that is quite normal as we were making lunch for 35 people.

And after the nice meals we had, we also needed some physical activity! The combination of dancing and laughing that is Zumba, was just perfect for us. Jogging along the river Tejo, made us feel like we were real inhabitants of Lisbon, enjoying the magnificent sunset instead of tourists.

We spent the evenings with discussions on how to spread word about healthy lifestyles and healthy habits once we would come back home. And we concluded that it is not important how big our projects back home will be , but that the message we are going to share is: Knowing how to eat is knowing how to live!

Written by: Zlatko Djordjevic, Health4Youth

Summer University „Riga Heartbeats Forever!” organised by AEGEE-Riga has recently finished – with loud cheers, farewell tears and warm embraces.

“Veselā miesā vesels gars!” – From the healthy spirit to the healthy body! – this Latvian proverb was the motto of this Summer University, and that is why the programme was filled with different activities supporting the idea of the event: lecture about healthy lifestyle, workshop about healthy eating habits, Latvian traditional sauna in theory and practice, morning gymnastics in the park, and other green, energetic and salutary exercises. Participants also experienced some challenges like an unexpected five kilometer hike from the train station to the cottage house in the seaside village, chilly swim in the Baltic sea, and a day in the rope adventure park “Mežakaķis” [Wildcat] in the picturesque Sigulda. The participants acknowledged that, in order to maintain good health, we have to pay attention to what we eat, therefore the organisers were very careful about the menu for these two weeks.  For example, offering high quality and healthy home-cooked dishes made from local products, harvesting vegetables from backyard gardens, opening mum’s homemade jams, encouraging eating rye bread instead of white, not missing the most important meal of the day – breakfast. Cake tasting workshop “When the Taste is Tastier” in the café “Mierā” caused gastronomic excitement impossible to put in words because, as many participants revealed, they had never tasted such delicious on-site baked cakes.

The timing of the event was well planned because it coincided with three-day-long Riga City Festival which offered an opportunity to participate in extra activities like rowing competition, aeronautic show, and visits to exhibitions, markets and concerts. But the highlight of these days was watching amazing fireworks. Each participant visiting Riga was interested to learn something more about Latvian culture, traditions and history. Therefore they highly appreciated the workshop about Latvian culture and language, as well as the Latvian traditional dances session. While listening to the lecture about AEGEE on the 25^th floor of the office building “Sun Stone”, the view from the window on Riga’s rooftops and church towers created unfeigned delight. By cleaning up the botanical garden of the University of Latvia, we proved that AEGEE is all about volunteering. The participants also had a possibility to show their artistic skills and other talents in such activities as karaoke, “AEGEE’s Got Talent” show and the contest “SU Pop-Street”.

During the Summer University we explored, experienced and completed some things which are impossible to write down on paper or type on keyboard, but those moments will be kept in our hearts forever. Friendships, love, surprises, and much more occurred in the magical city of Riga. The organizers of the Summer University “Riga Heartbeats Forever!” hope that for each participant these two weeks were the best, most valuable and adventurous event of this summer.

The Summer University in Riga would not have happened without a group of motivated, hard-working and creative AEGEE-Riga members that dared to contribute five previous months to make it come true. Also, organisers are grateful to all sponsors who supported “Riga Heartbeats Forever!”

Written by Diana Ondža, AEGEE-Riga

An announcement of a new project in AEGEE is a good sign – it means that the organisation is developing and its members are interested in attracting attention to different topics hence changing this world for better. Health4Youth is the new promising project aimed at teaching us how to live better, and be healthy mentally and physically in this constantly changing world. The AEGEEan was lucky to meet with its initiators, Mayri Tiido (AEGEE-Tartu), Matthijs Overhaal (AEGEE-Nijmegen) and Katre-Helena Käppa (AEGEE-Tartu), who answered together our questions in the pause between hitchhiking all over Europe and raised the curtain over the Health4Youth project background.  

The AEGEEan: Before in AEGEE we had projects and working groups mainly focused on environment we are living in and how to save this environment from us. However, Health4Youth is something new explaining how to live properly in this environment and manage to arrange healthy lifestyle for yourself in the 21st century. How did you come with the idea of the project?

“Once upon a lifetime, Mayri had this wonderful thought of developing an awesome project for AEGEE. As she was wondering what the topic should be, she came across the health topic, which turned out into something more than a shadow of a thought. She shared her thoughts with Matthijs and Katre and that’s how she found two companions, both interested and with knowledge about the topic.

Matthijs and Mayri

The idea was developed further during an 18-hour long bus trip from Tartu (Estonia) to Warsaw (Poland). The three of us got together at the Training4Trainers event by AEGEE-Warszawa, where we brainstormed about possibilities, objectives, aims and many other aspects. We found out soon that we believe that a healthy lifestyle for students could be a key item in the future, or better yet, should already be a key subject. This is not the case, as many students are unaware of their (unintentional) bad habits, eating patterns, alternative therapies and so on.“

The AEGEEan: Which health issues you are going to tackle in this project?

“Our project deals with the health in a broad sense, where one idea is to have some focus on eating habits, how to eat cheap and healthy. Next to that we would like to explore the term “healthy lifestyle” and misconceptions about health, food, etc.”

The AEGEEan: How you are going to promote the healthy life style among AEGEE members, loving so much to spend sleepless nights, arrange crazy European Nights and parties? It must be challenging, isn’t it?

“As much as we like to party, booze ourselves to the ground and so on, we believe that the time we don’t party is the most important time to intervene with our project. Students as we are, we love to do crazy things and drink alcohol but we don’t do that 24/7 or 365 days a year. We are not here to tell you to stop boozing (our project would be dead in a second), we want to show you how you can live healthy for the rest of the time.”

The AEGEEan: How the ideal AEGEE member, involved in the Health4Youth project, should look like?

“Naturally, this is an active, participating member in AEGEE, but that alone will not get us very far with our project. This is not just a project for AEGEE alone, we want our members to spread their lifestyle to as many people as they know, their moms and dads, diabetic aunts, friends with a beer tummy, you name it. So basically involved people should be motivated and not afraid to share their knowledge. Sharing is caring, isn’t it?”

The AEGEEan: How did you three found each other in our big AEGEE community and came together to the common idea of the Health4Youth?

“As initial starters of this project, we already knew each other quite long before. Since Mayri and Katre are in the same antenna, it makes sense they knew each other. Since Mayri and Matthijs are a couple for more than a year, it makes even more sense. Since Matthijs was in Estonia quite many times already, you can put together all the pieces. The three of us were together during an exchange in Estonia with AEGEE-Praha, the Training4Trainers event in Warsaw and at the last Agora in Enschede.”

Katre-Helena Käppa

The AEGEEan: Which are the first practical things you are going to implement in this project as soon as the deadline of open call for the Health4Youth project team members is finished and project team will start working?

“The team has to be put together and they can also share their ideas and thoughts so we can’t give you an exact answer yet. But here are a few examples of ideas:

– A blog about healthy food which will be updated often, with a diverse offer of (student) dishes
– Workshops at the Agora or EBM about a healthy lifestyle for students
And mainly, stay tuned for more!”

The AEGEEan: Please, continue the sentence “The Health4Youth project is an awesome project because…”
“…it aims to make our awesome lives healthier in an interactive way!”

If you are interested learning more about this project, check the project outline here and do not hesitate to write to H4Y team at mayri.tiido@gmail.com to ask any questions or join the project team. Do not be shy to start your healthy life today!

Written by Olga Iatsyna, AEGEE-Dnipropetrovsk

Pictures: Archives of Mayri Tiido