Rejection Stories

The innovativeness of the project “Rejection Stories” is based on two directions, which will be combined during the implementation of the project: the emotional and mental health of young people and culture.

Through the means of artistic expression we will provide young people and youth-workers with information to help them cope with ‘rejection’ situations, to engage in discussion with peers, and at the same time understand that such situations happen to everyone without exception.

On the cultural side, this project will allow the creation of video content through artistic media, with the help of partners, involving young artists from Lithuania, Estonia and Italy, in which they would reveal various “rejection” stories.

Main activities

3 international project partner meetings (Marijampole (LT), Rome (IT), Tallinn (EE)

1st partnership Meeting Rome (IT) September 2022

2nd partnership meeting in Tallinn (EE) March/April 2023

3rd partnership meeting in Marijampole (LT) June 2023

3 result sharing (dissemination) events (1 per country) for 50 participants

Creation and sharing of 30 video clips of different rejection stories (10 per country)

5-days training in Marijampole (LT) for 24 youth-workers/ volunteers / educator/ interested participants (8 per country) on how to work with young people with topics: emotions, mental health and rejections: 2-6 November 2022

Training Course “Rejection Stories” in Marijampole, Lithuania 2-6 November 2022

All participants in the international training will receive YouthPass certificates.

Location: Marijampolė, Lithuania, Hotel “Mercure Marijampolė“

Participants from Estonia, Italy and Lithuania

Youth workers, Youth leaders, Youth project managers, Volunteering mentors, Youth coaches, Youth researchers
1+ year of experience working with young people would be a plus 😉
no age limit

Accommodation, living and other project / exchange related expenses: 100% funded by the Erasmus+ programme.

Costs: Training is free of charge.

Info Pack: click ➡️ here

Activity program: click ➡️ here

Travel costs: reimbursed as follows: Up to €275 for Estonia after participating in the training course and upon submitting all invoices, boarding passes, bus tickets, proof of payments, etc.

Are you interested in taking part?

Fill in the APPLICATION FORM and send it to mobility@involved.ee ASAP. Title of e-mail: Application for Training Course, Spain

Project timeline

starting on 30 June 2021 and ending on 29 June 2023.

Project partners

Society and Enterprise Development Institute (LT)

Cultural and Organisational Ideas (LT)

Involved NGO (EE)

Fattore K (IT)

The project funding agreement number: 2020-1-LT02-KA227-YOU-007307

Press release: MTÜ Involved November 2022

Marijampole – Lithuania

Training Course „Rejection Stories“ took place!

From 2-6 November 2022 took place the training course „ Rejection Stories“ as part of Erasmus + project ‘ 2020-1-LT02-KA227-YOU-007307, which was hosted by Society and Enterprise Development Institute in Marijampole, Lithuania.

A 5-days training in Marijampole (LT) in which 24 youth-workers, volunteers and educator from Estonia, Italy and Lithuania met and learnt on how to work with young people with the following topics: emotions, mental health and rejections.

What does it mean to be rejected?

Even though it has been a month since the Rejection Stories training, the emotions and good memories are still with us. The aim of the training is to raise awareness among youth leaders and youth workers in an non-formal way about the importance and meaning of rejection, to recognise and understand one’s own emotions and what to do about them, to free the mind by immersing oneself in art and to relax the mind by using various non-formal education methods.

Together with the trainers, Aiste Rutkauskiene and Vladas Polevičius, we learnt how to work with young people in emotional crisis and how to use artistic means of expression when working with young people, thus encouraging young people to express their feelings through art and creativity. The project brought together youth leaders and youth workers from Lithuania, Italy and Estonia. Cultural and age differences, individuality, differences of opinion strengthened the inner strength of the team, created a close bond and harmony and encouraged the process of sharing their experiences. This is also confirmed by Riccardo from Italy’s thoughts after the training: „I was happily surprised to share my rejection story with a new and unknown group of people. I was amazed because although we were so different in ages, countries, experiences, we were also joint by the desire to hear us deeply. And not always we have time to do it“.

Rejection is perhaps one of the most relevant topics these days. Rejection can be seen as an opinion, which says more about the person expressing the opinion than about the person to whom the opinion is addressed. Sometimes it is simply not about us. We all understand rejection differently, we all experience it differently, we express different emotions – some of us are angry, swearing, others are sad, withdrawn and hiding, while others do not fight back, remain calm and do not show the slightest emotion. Whatever emotions we feel, no matter how big they are, they are all important and necessary. They enrich, teach and keep us grounded. One of the participants, Rodrigo from Estonia, says that: „I think it is important to train ourselves to learn to accept and tolerate rejection and to become aware of our attitudes of rejection. The training opened a door to the possibility of becoming more aware of rejection as a mechanism of intra and interpersonal interaction“.

We may not notice or pay attention, but rejection is with us every day, always at our side, ready to test our mettle. The question remains: how will we react to it? The saying “I am responsible for what I said, but I am not responsible for how you perceived it and reacted to it” is perfect for this. Emotions determine our future behaviour. Each of them encodes a certain script that will guide the behaviour of the person who is emotional. By becoming more aware of our emotional scripts, we can become more conscious of our emotional experiences and learn to react more constructively in certain situations.

Giuseppe Vetti, a professional clown from Italy, helped you to get to know your emotions and your body’s reactions. He helped us to get rid of the emotions that were lingering, to provoke ourselves to do things we had not done before, to show tenderness but speak harshly, to surprise ourselves and others. The general exercise of emotions, the roller coaster of heavy and light sensations allowed us to release tension and enjoy the learning process.

A week of training went by in a flash. It seemed that as soon as we met, we had to say goodbye. Many sincere emotions, moments of openness, sensitive moments and inner reflections accompanied the participants throughout the project. Camilla from Italy says that “I bring home with me the games and the importance to play in order to learn. Each of us deserves respect, we can try to understand each other and accept without need of a mandatory change”.

It is a wonderful feeling to organise and participate in this type of training, which not only enriches, educates and teaches, but also allows us to empathise with ourselves, with our needs, our thoughts, our deepest experiences. As we share the good, it grows, and as we share the difficult experiences, they gradually recede.

Rejection Stories is a strategic partnership for creativity in youth and is co-funded by Erasmus+.

Project is coordinated by Society and Enterprise Development Institute form Lithuania and co-implemented by project partners INVOLVED ngo from Estonia Cultural and Organisational Ideas from Lithuania, and Fattore K from Italy.

If you have any ideas for collaboration, contact the project manager in Estonia

Learn more from the project “Rejection Stories”: here

Angel Casal

angel.casal@involved.ee

Press release: MTÜ Involved September 2022

Rome – Italy

Rejection Stories project launched!

From 19. to 20.09.22 took place the First Partners Meeting of the Erasmus + project ‘’Rejection Stories’’ 2020-1-LT02-KA227-YOU-007307, which was hosted by Fattore K in Rome, Italy.

Together, with project partners, we had the opportunity to meet and discuss the implementation face of the project, each partner’s responsibilities, discuss about internal partnership agreement amongst other practicalities.

During the meeting, we also discussed the intellectual outputs such as: Creation and sharing of 30 video clips of different rejection stories (10 per country) as well as strategically plan its dissemination plan in each country. What is more, another point of the meeting was to plan the upcoming #mobility of #youthworkers, 5-days training in Marijampole (LT) for 24 youth-workers (8 per country) on how to work with young people with topics: emotions, mental health and rejections.

Partners were planning the following activities that will be implemented till June 2023:

2 international project partner meetings (Marijampole (LT) and Tallinn (EE);

Creation and sharing of 30 video clips of different rejection stories (10 per country)

5-days training in Marijampole (LT) for 24 youth-workers (8 per country) on how to work with young people with topics: emotions, mental health and rejections.

Local dissemination events in each of participating countries

The open call for participants from Estonians or residents in Estonia for the training course on 2-6 November 2022 is available on Involved NGO website: Apply here

To recall:

Project is coordinated by Society and Enterprise Development Institute form Lithuania

and co-implemented by project partners INVOLVED ngo from Estonia

Cultural and Organisational Ideas from Lithuania,

and Fattore K from Italy.