For 6 months, Diletta, as member of Giosef Italy, came to Baia Mare, Romania, to learn more about the NGO management and social media in Yellow Shirts Romania. The main aspects tackled were: ► social media - articles, posts, website content, visibility and dissemination materials-activities ► project management - support for the project implementation, local activities, support with volunteers' coordination ► EU funds and NGO management - EU programmes for culture-music, working procedures, steps to organise activities ► develop competences useful on the labour market - project management, project writing, EU funding opportunities, logistics of events, online promotion, youth working methods and tools "SoundBeatsTime" is implemented by Yellow Shirts in partnership with Associazione Giosef - Giovani Senza Frontiere (Italy) and Institutul Roman de Educatie a Adultilor (Romania). The main purpose of this project is to equip the youth with the needed competences in obtaining financial benefits from the cultural sector, in particular from music. This project is financed by the European Commission through Erasmus+ programme.

1. My internship for SoundBeatsTime project
Baia Mare, Romania
June-December 2022
Yellow Shirts Romania presents
A story by Diletta Ursetta

2. I arrived here in Baia Mare on the 20th of June and all
I could think of the town was that it is beautiful, but
most of all, I have never seen so many trees, gardens,
flowerbeds and hedges manicured to perfection
anywhere else.
I arrived at the same time as the ESC volunteers from
the V4Volunteering project, which was particularly
dedicated to nature activities and setting up a local
beach volleyball tournament.
In the first few days here I was lucky enough to visit
museums, monuments such as the Stephen Tower,
and participate with the other volunteers in hikes
around the city, accompanied by team building
activities.

3. The Baia Mare Urban Sports beach
volleyball tournaments involved 13 ESC
volunteers from all over the world and amateur
players from various parts of Transylvania.
I was part of the scores team,
a great responsibility.
But most importantly, I participated in the
preparation of the playing field, and learned about
the organisation of a sports event. A totally new
topic for me.
I watched Andreea divide the ESC volunteers in an
appropriate proportion to the tasks and according
to each one's skills.
We started two days before the event by preparing
the playing area at Peninsula, a recreational park
built around a giant natural pool, in Cicârlău. These
days the teamwork united the group even more, it
was a way of getting to know each other, working
but having fun.
Under the coordination of Andreea,
everyone takes on their roles: the
group of those who take care of the
court, the group of those who always
supply the players with balls, those
who keep score, the group that
witnesses the event on social media.
Everyone is important, everyone is
involved, moments of strong heat or
sudden rain do not spoil the
collaborative mechanism between
everyone, and there is no shortage of
moments of joking!

4. Youth mental health workshop
I facilitated a workshop on youth mental healt after the pandemic of Covid-19
and all the restrictions of the social interactions.
After a couple of energizer activities, I introduced the talk on Covid-19, about
how it affected on everyone’s lives.
Then I had the participants randomly walk around the room with music playing in
the background. When I stopped it, they first had 4, then 2, finally less than 1
minute to tell how they experienced the first lockdown to the person closest to
them.
In the second activity, I divided them into two groups and had them perform a
group home scene of what they did most during the lockdown time. Each one of
them showed their position to the group. This part was playful.
Lastly, I let them show how they perceived personal spaces during the pandemic
and afterwards, using paper tape, and made them enter half the room into each
other’s personal spaces. I asked them how they were feeling about it.
And finally reflection together.
I really liked how they all opened up, but especially how they were able to mix
depth and humour in their final reflections.

5. I spent a week in Predeal from 21 to 28 July, in the Brașov
province. The event that took me there was the Data Science
International Summer School of the Faculty of Business
at the Academy of Economic Studies in Bucharest.
I was in the organisers’ team and specifically responsible for
social media managing the LinkedIn page of the Bucharest
Business School and co-managing the social events.
In the first days these social events took place, the first one
was a kind of speed dating. It was curious how at the
beginning everyone was listless and then those three
minutes were no longer enough. In the following days,
there were also physical games, so we really wanted to get
them out of their bubble and mix it up. Finally, also an
escape room designed for these geniuses that included
things like the Rubik’s cube, the Fibonacci formula and
equations to be solved among novels, plants, balloons and
pasta!

6. The idea in the minds of the Summer School’s creators was for
this to be a complete experience, a series of social and even
professional connections between all the professors and
participants, not just a set of subject-specific lectures.
I attended a few lectures on the basics of artificial intelligence
and the influence of smartphone applications on the financial
market.
But my favourite events were the discovery
trips to the wonderful Brașov region, both to
the historic capital city and the long hikes
through the magnificent Carpathian
mountain range. These were unmissable
team-building moments, the teamwork in
nature, but also the logistical organisation
created an atmosphere of great complicity
between all participants.
I loved that people from all over the world
were gathered at this event, USA, China,
Norway, UK, Syria, just to mention a few. In
the end, it was like being on an Erasmus+
intercultural exchange!

7. During these months I have done a
research, writing and translation
work for the SoundBeatsTime
project.
To promote the website in
particular, I wrote several articles,
which explored the project's main
topics: music, entrepreneurship
and online promotion.
I contributed to the guide for all organisations that are new to EU projects.
I researched and presented all possible EU-related funds, but also national,
regional and private funds, explaining how to access information and apply.
In addition, I wrote a number of tips based on what I have learnt in my experience
in this field, where I am still a junior.
I edited the subtitles in Italian and English for the MOOCs, a series of video lectures
divided into chapters, in which professionals from the music industry collaborated on
the project to teach about the basics of music, recording techniques, music editing
and production, and artist's intellectual property legislation.

8. SoundBeatsTime mobilities
Preparation time
Facilitated project
report
I tackled report writing
for the first time after
facilitation in an
exchange. It was a great
learning moment. I
realised how important it
is as a document to
demonstrate the full
effectiveness of a project,
the change it has
generated also in the
long term, sustainability,
but also to highlight
structural problems, very
useful to bring innovation
into the system.
The preparation of activities
and materials for the second
part of the SoundBeatsTime
mobility in Baia Mare was
fervent with exchanges of
ideas. I visualised with
Andreea the path of the
learning process, in particular
focusing on activities to
stimulate entrepreneurial
thinking and online
promotion. Even preparing
some materials for the
activities, such as the
problem-solution tree,
changed the way I approach
new challenges.

9. SoundBeatsTime mobilities pt.1
Timișoara
The first part of the Erasmus+ SoundBeatsTime project
mobility took place in the beautiful city Timișoara, the
historical capital of Banat, under the organisation IREA -
Institutul Roman de Educatie a Adultilor. The mobility
lasted from 22 to 27 September 2022.
My main task was to tell the learning process of the
young participants on social media with stories, posts
and articles.
In addition, I took care of the Italian
group, especially for logistical issues and
their needs. It was the first time I had a
responsible role during a youth exchange.
I learnt a lot and had fun.

10. SoundBeatsTime mobilities pt.2
Baia Mare
The mobility ended in Baia Mare with Yellow Shirts Romania.
Here I continued my role as social media manager, supporting
the activities facilitated by Andreea, and the Italian team.
But I also had the
pleasure of facilitating
the closing activities of
the whole youth
exchange.
I led the final session
where the participants
gave feedback on the
whole project, focusing
in particular on the
two mobilities in
Romania.
The participants were open
to reflect on the youth
exchange experience, for
many of them, given their
very young age, it was the
first time.
I appreciated having this
opportunity to close my
path with the kids.

11. SoundBeatsTime multiplying event
Street Delivery
At this local festival we presented to people and other
organisations the SoundBeatsTime project, the web platform,
the video lessons, the youth exchange. And the Erasmus+
opportunities.
I set up a workshop for
children to create musical
instruments such as banjos,
maracas, accordions with
objects that can be found
easily at home, including
seeds, rice, jar tops, cards. The
children were enthusiastic,
following me step by step
through the creation process,
but to be honest, the adults
were also very interested.

12. ESC Coordinator for Baia Mare is Mine project
The project, which began last year, aims to promote the rich local culture,
traditions, nature and social network of the town and district. Highlights
include a city guide, an exhibition at the Museum of History, a 3D
reproduction of old buildings, interviews with local women active in the city,
360-degree news, treasure hunts, photographs and much more. And in this
much more, there were also collaborations with local associations such as
Asociația DEIS, the Bastionul Măcelarilor, an historic and symbolic place to
rediscover Baia Mare’s cultural, manual, and artistic traditions.
My work started with
selecting and
interviewing foreign
candidates, while
Andreea did the same
but with locals. So we
arrived at 6 Romanian
volunteers and 5
foreigners from
Georgia, France,
Poland and Spain.

13. In the first few weeks, Andreea and I facilitated team-building activities with the volunteers and meetings with
them to establish their tasks for the project, but we also made room for their personal skills and passions in order
to create personal projects.
Each week we led coordination meetings to see how the process was going for each of them, to receive feedback
and finally to schedule the following week.
I was the intermediary between the volunteers and Yellow Shirts for whatever their needs and requests were, but
also to the other local organisations already mentioned to organise workshops and events together.
Several times I facilitated ice-breaking activities in their workshops, or the weekly team-building activities of our
volunteer team.

14. Discovering Romania.. and more!
One of the most beautiful gifts during these months has been to have many opportunities to travel and discover the wonder
of Romania and Eastern Europe.
Braşov Cluj-Napoca
Timișoara Oradea
Salina Turda (CJ)
Budapest (HU)

15. THANKS TO ERASMUS+
SOUNDBEATSTIME
YELLOW SHIRTS
and GIOSEF ITALY
FOR THIS AMAZING ADVENTURE!
Diletta