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

The biggest event of a small antenna –  AEGEE-Porto Invicta Summer University. 22 participants from León to Helsinki came to Porto and enjoyed the diverse program.

After months of preparation, the day has finally come. Participants arrived during the afternoon of the 27th July at the hostel were the group stayed for three nights.

The crew started to feel Porto’s soul in a pub, while having a coffee, after some ice-breaking games. Participants continued to discover the city in the next days, with a city-rally, a bus tour and some visits.

The event turned greener on Monday, when we went to the greener part of Portugal – Minho – on a green bus. The municipality of Monção was visited under the burning sun, which was balanced with the fresh water of the river, the day after, while rafting in Melgaço.

The afternoon was spent at the swimming-pool, laying down on the grass. A tasting of Alvarinho, a green wine produced only in Monção and Melgaço, followed on the next day.

It was then time to come back to Porto. Among some more visits and flash mobs around the city, there was time for a nice souvenir workshop, a surf lesson and the famous European Night.

One more event in the story of AEGEE-Porto Invicta. An event which enriched everybody, in a social as well as in a personal sense. Different people, different cultures and different personalities were together. These ten days will be long remembered by all, and we hope we can meet again… somewhere in Europe!

Written by Katy Dias, AEGEE-Porto Invicta

A couple of weeks ago people from Spain, France and Portugal went to a network meeting in Oporto and took their network to a new level. The atmosphere there was something that is hard to explain with words, but I will try. First of all, what was amazing was the huge participation from the three countries. Young people from Lyon, Paris, León, Madrid, Oporto, Las Palmas, Oviedo and more places all joined forces in order to create better network and to have fun together at the same time. Being a bit of an outsider, since I am Danish but part of AEGEE-Madrid, I am really fascinated by the hard work the Netcom and the different antennae put into AEGEE. What was noted as a huge achievement in the event was that it was a network meeting were English was the most spoken language and indeed you would see groups mixed of nationalities socializing together all the time.

Working together is something the three antennae do all the time, also when they are apart. A Google group better known as “la nave” has been created in order to inform about future events and start initiatives for different projects. It amuses me a lot that ones part of “la nave” was so eager and e-mailing each other all the time that a Facebook group had to be created for spamming each other. The group was a Spanish initiative and for this reason the “official language” started out being Spanish, but because of the international success in Porto the “official language” changed to English immediately afterwards, and now people get corrected each time they write something in their own language, but in a nice way of course.

In the end lots of success is thanks to AEGEE-Oporto who, even though they are small antenna of less than ten persons, chose to host a Network Meeting because “after a SU that went pretty well we thought: “Why not?” It turns out that it was not hard at all thanks to all amazing trainers and participants we had. When I hear experienced members saying that it was one of the best NWMs they were in, I think it was all worth it,” Vice president João Monteiro comments. They indeed kicked ass, because they showed the eager to work hard for AEGEE in Portugal. Hopefully, we will see more AEGEE activity in Portugal in the nearest future; we for sure know that the Netcom and especially their new Twin antenna AEGEE-Burgos will do everything to help.

Written by Patricia Anthony, AEGEE-København & AEGEE-Madrid