Day 1 - Arrival Day
On the first day we all arrived happy and safely - looking forward to our week together!
Day 2 - Trip to Hannover and meeting DBfK
On day 2 we did our first travel. But before that, there was a warm-up and some getting to know each other - name learning, phew, pretty hard with 43 new people!
In Hannover, we met "Deutscher Berufsverband für Pflegeberufe" (DBfK). The representatives of the "Young Carers" told us about their work within DBfK and of the German system of care-giving professions. We could ask a lot of questions and could compare with our own countries.
Afterwards, we took a walk to a nearby hospital (DRK Clementinenhaus) which specializes in geriatry - so our topic completely. There, we learned about it's founder Agnes Karll and her contribution to the German care-giving professions.
We could also take a look around one of the wards - pretty interesting!
Day 3 - Proper introductions & presentations
In the morning, we talked about the last day and could do some discussion on open questions and what we had learned from the DBfK.
Then we did another round of getting to know each other. We had to draw pieces of the face of everyone and afterwards do 1-on-1 interviews to be able to present one person from the group. So, everyone could hear the name of everyone else, and learn a little bit about them (the Maledives were a pretty popular holiday spot : D).
After introductions, Antonia presented the program schedule to us, explained what ERASMUS+ could offer us apart from this youth exchange, talked about the YouthPass and gave an overview over our funding situation.
In the afternoon, all of us presented their organizations and study programs. We saw a lot of differences, but also a lot of similarities. Also, we had to prepare a little movie asking people in our countries on the street what they think about age and ageing and stuff connected to it ... pretty interesting outcomes!
After dinner, we had some time for reflection of the day and what we learned.
And after that: "FOOD FESTIVAL". Everyone had to bring typical food from their country and we all could have a look and a taste of everything. It was pretty great!
Day 4 - Hard work!
After our morning warm-up, two of our group leaders gave a presentation on their research in correspondence with ageing and old age.
Beata Dobrowolska presented her research: "Age discrimination in health care institutions. Research among seniors and students."
And Rachael Mason talked about "Reminiscence activities to promote well-being amongst residents living with dementia".
We discussed about the findings and also our own experiences during our practical trainings. These two presentations were a very good start for own task afterwards. Thank you, Beata and Rachael!
In the afternoon, it was our turn to get working. In our national teams, we were supposed to answer these two questions and present our results to the whole group:
1) What comes to your mind, when you think about old/elderly people? What about your society's view?
2) What are legal guidelines for old people in your country? Think about retiring age, system of state support for the retired ...
The results were very interesting, especially the comparison of the answer to question 2) among all the countries.
After this first task, next we got into mixed teams. There were four topics:
- History
- Stereotypes/Expectations
- Scientific
- Advertisement
We were randomly chosen for one of these topics and had the afternoon to prepare any sort of presentation of our discussion, the video material and the documents that were given to us to help us "solve" the task.
In the end, we had four cool presentations with discussions and everyone could learn what the others had talked about.
Day 5 - Discover Magdeburg
In the morning, we had some experts invited, who would tell us about their research. Lina Handrek, a representative from the Statistical Office in Magdeburg told us about her qualitative research about "Education in Old Age". She also gave some statistical data about Saxony-Anhalt and we got a better impression of the region where we spent the last couple of days.
Also, another project presented itself. It was about "Autonomy in Old Age" - and project leader Dr. Astrid Eich-Krohm talked about this joint research project with 19 subsections and doctoral candidate Julia Piel talked about her specific research on couples within the project. Those topics fit perfectly and we could discuss a lot about their findings and about what we saw and experienced during our training.
After that, we did ALL country presentations. Phew, what a stress! But beccause we didn't manage to so them earlier, we did it now ... and it was fun!
In the afternoon, we went and discovered Magdeburg. We took the bus into city centre and got a list with sights to see and tasks to do. After that: FREE TIME!
Day 6 - Professionalisma!
On our last full day together, we went to Goslar to visit Pflegeschulzentrum Goslar and the Mental Clinic Dr. Fontheim. Thanks to the special cooperation with the Pflegeschulzentrum, we were able to visit.
But not without a price: We all had to present our study programs again in front of a lot of students from Pflegeschulzentrum!
After that was done, we could all relax and have some lunch at Mental Clinic Dr. Fontheim ... and a tour through the clinic!
Later in the afternoon, we went back to Goslar and had a guided tour or some free time to spend in the city centre and at 6.30 p.m. it was "Back to Magdeburg" for our final evaluation, plans for the future and farewell night:
Day 7 - Goodbye and Farewell
On day 7 it was time to say goodbye. We did a last morning warm-up, said goodbye and farewell ... and left back home.