This September five members of the Foundation of Regional Initiatives from Kyiv, Dnipro, Lviv, and Ivano-Frankivsk took part in a short-term Erasmus+ exchange “Move to improve” in Vila Nova de Tazem, Portugal.

The young people from Bulgaria, Lithuania, Macedonia, and Portugal also participated in the project. The topics of this exchange were mental health and the role of physical activities. Each team had a chance to talk more about mental health situations in their countries and got a chance to find out more about the ways how to cope with different mental health issues.

Our Ukrainian participants shared their experience in psychological support during the full-scale war, told how Ukrainians cheer themselves up, about meme culture and how the medical care system is being transformed in Ukraine to meet the current demands of society.

Moreover, after the exchange, our team led the workshop about emotional intelligence and mental health for participants of the volunteering camp “Building Ukraine Together”. The project took place in Partyzanske village in the Dnipropetrovsk region in October. We discussed why understanding and acceptance of emotions are important for our psychological well-being.

Then participants played the board game called “On emotions” which is a great instrument for group reflection. It is a deck of 70 cards with different emotions and feelings and this game could be played in different ways. Thus, participants shared their own stories when they were feeling happy, cheered up, depressed or dreamy and played charades guessing the emotions that were shown by their teammates.

By Maryna Prakhova