EVS Film Festival: 'CITIZEN, YES YOU KANE'

Monday, 22 April. It seemed to be like an another normal day. Another calm day in our Rustavi. In one moment everything changed. With the arrival of the French volunteer, cameraman Clément, who came up with the idea to shoot a video for The European Voluntary Service Film Festival organized by the French National Agency. As 2013 is the ‘European Year of Citizens’ young people got opportunity to share their vision of citizenship  and exchange view points on civic engagement.

So, what is your idea about citizenship? What exactly citizenship means for you? From the small play with words volunteers from GYE created  the name of their video: CitizenSHEEP. Bee-e (or me-e)? Now just to find a costume of the sheep, get the main actors, take a couple of shots and create a final video … and our own big georgian contest can start!!!

The competition deadline was set for Monday, 22^nd of April, midnight of the Central European Time. On Saturday, when the video was recorded on the internet, nobody believed that we can find more than 700 votes in two days. We tried to make the best, but still it seemed that there is no possibility to overtake Hungarian video which was on the first positon. In about six o'clock this video disappeared   from web pages with unclear reasons. It was the real beginning of the competition!!! Almost all GYE members began bombing their FB contacts with the link of that glorious video:

Dako (22 duben v 22:31)

400 vote yet :) more VOTE PLSSSSS

Liene (22 duben v 22:32)

yeah, already 400 . We need at least 170 votes more. Use all web browswers in your pc for voting. You can give more then one vote by using the same pc. :)

The votes were sent from around the world:

Alberto (22 duben v 23:35)

Voted. Good Luck!! and Regards from Spain.

Di-Yana (23 duben v 0:04)

Good luck from Croatia.... !!!

Tamuna Tsertsvadze (22 duben v 23:41)

This is the most international EVENT I have ever seen ! :))

You deserve to win it guys ! ! !

The georgian dream seemed to be so close, tension started to be in the air:

Liene (23 duben v 0:56)

Is there any limitation how old video can be?

Ekaterine (23 duben v 1:33)

How many votes we need? :)

People didn't stop to send their votes, despite the late hours of the morning:

Madis (23 duben v 1:29)

Past 700 votes, its amazing :D

And in the end we were so close that … :

Tamuna (23 duben v 1:52)

We are leading !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Laura (23 duben v 2:04)

We won

Thank you soooo much....

Who can sleep after this??? heheheheheh

WE WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

813 votes!!!! Only 14 votes ahead of the video, which appeared to be the favorite until the last moment! All this votes helped us to won the price of the Internet Aware Award - camera in the value of 250 € - and our movie will be screened in the European meeting “Video and Youth project : the Big Picture” in Montreuil (Paris), France.

Many thanks to all who shared, voted ... or just silently prayed. Our CitizenSHEEP drank for you on our afterparty!!!!!!

Here is the link for the video with english subtitles! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqsB00WR1OU&feature=youtu.be

IT workshop

Last Friday “Youth Association Droni” organised a workshop called “IT tools for your organisation”. Achiko and I were lucky enough to join. After our usual marsjroetka ride we arrived in Tbilisi. It wasn't that easy to find the Droni office. Actually Achiko and I think that finding the Droni office is maybe harder than making a website ;-)

Thanks to Kris, the IT master of Droni and also an EVS volunteer, we were able to take a small look into the world of IT. He showed us how to use Wordpress for making a website. Not only did he showed us how to make a website but he also showed use how to use several Google tools. One day is not enough to make us IT professionals, but I think Achiko and I'll be able to make a website for GYE now. So keep an eye on this blog, before you know it we'll have a website up and running!




Special thanks:I want to thank Kris for his time and support during the workshop, Monika for taking the photos and Michele for the orange.

More information about “Youth Assosiation Droni”, go to droni.org (a Wordpress site :-) 

Tijs in Rustavi

"Tijs do you want to come to a rugby match this Saturday in Tbilisi? Georgia vs Portugal?". "Of course", I said - knowing that I had no idea about the rules of the game...

My name is Tijs Boorsma and I'm from the Netherlands, also known as Holland. A country where we don't play rugby :-) (or at least only a small minority of us do). And I've now been in Georgia for 1 week, as part of my EVS with Georgian Youth for Europe (GYE). I'll be staying for five months in total, in Rustavi.
In the Netherlands I work as a volunteer for DBYn NL in Rijswijk, which is right next to The Hague. Like GYE our organisation is also involved in long and short term EVS projects. And this is how I heard of GYE.
In the summer of 2011 and 2012, GYE sent two volunteers to our summer project, “Vakantiebos”. And we are currently hosting a Georgian volunteer for his long term EVS.
Based on these volunteers' stories and the connection with GYE, I decided I wanted to do my EVS in Georgia. And here I am!

If you want to know more about our EVS projects you can contact gye.yia@gmail.com

So last Saturday I went to my first Rugby match. My friend (and mentor) Achiko picked me up in Rustavi and we went by marsjroetka (a kind of mini bus) to Tbilisi. Before we entered the stadium Achiko had to buy something that look like black peanuts. The match wasn't sold out so we bought a ticket in the stadium for 5 lari. In the stadium we met with Salo, she is one of the permanent staff members in GYE.

The match started with the national anthem from boths teams. And as I expected nobody was singing with the Portugees, I couldn't see any Portugees suporters. Of course almost the whole stadium sung when they played the Geogian national anthem.

Even before the match started I knew what the black peanuts where... Everybody (!?!?) is eating them and they are called “Semichka”. And they weren't peanuts but sunflower seeds. They open them with the teeth and spit the shell on the floor and eat the bit inside. It needs some practice before you realise how to open them....

Luckily a friend of Salo knew the rules so she could explain them to me. After five minutes Georgia was already leading 7-0. Finally Georgia won 25-12. Do I like rugby now?? Mmmmmm, it is interesting - alot of big muscley men running after a ball that looks like an egg who can shoot at the goal (two long posts) out of nothing. No, I don't think rugby is my sport. I prefer football. But the most important thing is that we had a lot of fun.

More about me:

My name is Tijs Boorsma I'm 30 years old (20-07-1982) and I live in The Hague. I was born in Arnhem, my parents are still living there. I have one sister who lives in Amsterdam.
I studied automotive engineering and was working as a fire engine designer. In my free time I like to go by bike and go around with my friends. I'm also a big football supporter. I support Vitesse Arnhem. Some of you might know this club, Guram Kashia and Valeri Qazaishvili are playing for it?
If you want to know more about me, the Netherlands or Vitesse. Just send me a mail and I'll reply as soon as possibletijsboorsma@gmail.com

ნახვამდის
Tijs 

have you ever tried climbing mountain in platform shoes?

Cooking Club Spy

An evil spy infiltrated in the last cooking club documenting all the activities as the young and brave (and unsuspecting) volunteers and local Georgians tried to find a common ground for such powerful nations as the French, the Portuguese and the British.

At first the spy wanted to use the collected photos to report this dangerous activity to the alien king NoBros who is of the colour of socks that are given to you as a Christmas gift and is president of the club "Intergalactic Puppy Haters". He despises and fears all kinds of friendly dillydallying and such nonsense as peace and mutual understanding. NoBros had planned to take over the Earth on Saturday (because on Fridays he is visiting his granny) so he sent the evil spy to document the greatest threat to his power. 

However, the love and joy the evil spy experienced in cooking club turned him (just like the overwhelming goodness of Smurfs turned Smurfette) and he decided to spread this tasty message of companionship because it is the only way to prevent NoBros usurpation.

Here you can see the photos: Also below you will find RECIPES.

 Sangria
3l wine
1l Sprite
4 apples
3-4 oranges
1 cinnamon stick
brown sugar

All the ingredients should be mixed and put in a fridge with lots of ice for 1 - 1,5 hours.

British Flapjack
6 tbsp Golden Syrup or corn syrup
200g unsalted butter
330g oatmeal porridge


Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Butter a form of 9"x 13"/23cm x 33cm Swiss roll tin and line the base with
baking parchment. Place the syrup and butter into a large saucepan and heat gently until the butter has melted into the syrup and stir well. Make sure you add all the golden syrup, sometimes it is hard to get it exact and more is always better than less if you want your flapjack gooey but not falling apart.

Put the oats into a roomy baking bowl, add a pinch of salt then pour over the butter and syrup mixture and stir to coat the oats. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and spread evenly to fill the tin making sure the surface is even.

Bake in the preheated oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven while the flapjack is still slightly soft, it will harden once cool. Place the tin on a wire cooling rack and cut the flapjack into squares and leave in the tin until completely cold.

The flapjack can be well stored in an airtight tin.

French Quiche
250g flour
30 g butter
salt
5 spoons of water

Mix the flour, softened butter and water as needed for a smooth, non-sticky dough. Make a dough ball, wrapp it in foil and let rest for at least 120 minutes in the refrigerator. 

Lightly roll up 1/2cm, prepare pancake thickness layer and place in a greased mold (pie or cake), bevel the edges. Stab the dough with a fork. Put chopped bacon pieces on top of it (can be brown) and cover with cheese. Whisk the cream and eggs, add a pinch of ground nutmeg and pour into mold.  

Bake in a preheated oven at 200 degrees for about three quarters of an hour. You can use everything that you have in your fridge - vegetables such as tomato and onion or eggplant, or just spinach with egg.