BASIC FACTS

Basic facts about your country’s Alumni Association:

Country Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela

Name of the organization SWYAA Venezuela

Organisational structure

□ Umbrella organization of the government

□ Officially registered

□ Voluntary group

□ Other

Board members (Name/batch)

President: Edwin Solórzano. (SWY 21) Vice President: Andreina Martinez. (SWY 21) Treasurer: Ricardo Reséndiz. (SWY 21) Project Coordinator: Nathalie Wierdak. (SWY 21) IT Coordinator: Andres Cordova. (SWY 21) Spoke Person: Heydee Marquez. (SWY 17)

Number of members

Total number of ex-PYs: 158 Active members: 20 Affiliate members: 7 Volunteers (not ex-PYs)

Annual membership fee

□ Yes How much?

□ No

Basic facts about your country’s participation in SWY:

Which batches has your country participated in?

SWY 1, SWY 3, SWY 5, SWY 7, SWY 9, SWY 11, SWY 13, SWY 15, SWY 17, SWY 21, SWY 24.

Which institution has conducted the selection process?

□ Japanese Embassy

□ Government

□ Youth organization

□ SWYAA

□ Other

Which institution has conducted the pre-departure training?

□ Japanese Embassy

□ Government

□ Youth organization

□ SWYAA

□ Other

How many days was the pre-departure training?

□ 1 day

□ 2 – 3 days

□ 4 – 6 days

□ Other ( 4 weeks or more )

Communication:

How does your AA communicate internally with members and externally with non-members?

□ Website URL (http://swyaavenezuela.wix.com/swyaavenezuela)

□ Newsletter

□ Mailing list

□ Blog

□ Facebook page

□ Other

NETWORKING AND COLLABORATIONS WITH JAPAN AND THE GLOBAL COMMUNITY

Important associates and collaborators?

□ Government sector

□ Japanese Embassy

□ Japanese community

□ Other organizations: Finlands Svenska 4H, Finland. IOGT Tippetue, Norway. E-Gençlik Association, Turkey. No Excuse, Slovenia. Organización Argentina de Jóvenes para las Naciones

Unidas, (OAJNU) Argentina. ORPAS – Obras Recreativas, Profissionais, Artísticas e

Sociais, Brazil. Ship for World Youth Alumni Association Peru. European Plattform for Youth Development (Romania). Aljaraque en Acción (Spain). Cardiff Youth Council (UK). YouthfulCities (Canada).

Do you organize events with the Japanese Embassy?

□ Yes How often? ( Once a year ) What kind of events? ( Cultural, Educational, and environmental Activities )

□ No

Do you organize events with the Japanese community?

□ Yes How often? What kind of events?

□ No

ACTIVITIES IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR

International Reunions

Name of the event YouthfulCities Caracas

Date of the event May, 2014 Hosting city Caracas, Venezuela.

Number of domestic participants: Number of international participants: Names of the countries participated:

09 Venezuelan Participants. (Volunteers) 15 International Participants. Canada and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

In May 2014, SWYAA Venezuela Project Coordinator Nathalie Wierdak and Youth Representative Andreína Soto lead the YouthfulCities initiative in Caracas Venezuela. YouthfulCities is a global social venture that illuminates and decodes the power of urban youth globally. With the help of volunteers Andreína Martínez, Carlos Reséndiz, Ricardo Reséndiz, Lunín Pereda, Luis Omar Rodriguez, Ricardo González and Erick Wierdak they conducted more than 600 surveys among youth from different backgrounds, providing input for the YouthfulCities INDEX that ranks the world's top cities from a youth perspective, amplifying the voice of urban youth globally while inspiring change locally. Extensive research was also involved for completing the Caracas INDEX, with more than 16 different categories like civic participation, transportation, health, security, diversity, media, cost of living, among other, and hundreds of indicators. The results of this research were presented during the 30 Network Caracas meeting, a pop-up think-tank involving 30 influential urbanites under the age of 30. The 30 are all proven leaders with multidisciplinary interests and backgrounds, connected to what matters to young people in the city.

Author: Nathalie Wierdak

Name of the event Meeting With The Japanese Ambassador In Spain

Date of the event March 17th -23rd , 2013 Hosting city Madrid, Spain

Number of domestic participants: Number of international participants: Names of the countries participated:

02 SWYAA Venezuelan Volunteers. 15 International Participants. Spain and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

Monday, March 17th Volunteers, ex-students from the scholarship programs and ex-participants of the Ship for World Youth Program Spain and Venezuela, along with all members of the Japanese Embassy, diplomats and ministers from different countries, joined the celebration of the annual meeting at the Japanese Ambassador’s house in Madrid. This year was the Dual Year Japan-Spain which commemorates the 400 years of the arrival of the Keicho Embassy to Spain. This event started with the National Anthem of Spain followed by the National Anthem of Japan as its custom. The environment was full of joy as all the people were chatting and greeting the Ambassador of Japan, Satoru Satoh, who kindly gave a speech congratulating the students who earned the scholarships and were going to study to Japan this year and commemorating the first Spanish who won this scholarship many years ago. Afterwards, the dinner was served as an open buffet with the best of Japanese cuisine. The members of the SWYAA Venezuela Edwin Solórzano (SWY21) and Leonel Velasquez (SWY21) took the opportunity to talk with the ambassador about their own experiences on the Ship for the World Youth Program, their life in Spain, and their desire to keep working with the embassy through the SWYAA Spain.

Author: Leonel Velásquez.

Name of the event Brick - Building our community

Date of the event June , 2014 Hosting city Rødekro, Denmark.

Number of domestic participants: Number of international participants: Names of the countries participated:

01 SWYAA Venezuelan Volunteer. 50 International Participants. Denmark, Finland, Czech Republic, Spain, Hungary, Portugal, Sweden United Kingdom, Slovenia, Germany, Norway, Peru and the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

The SWYAA Venezuela had the privilege to receive an invitation to attend the “Brick Project – Building our Community”, that was a European initiative about citizens’ active participation in community planning. Brick was a two years project and consisted of four seminars and a result workshop. The seminars took place in Spain, Slovenia, Denmark and Finland, and the workshop was in Finland. Participants came from the hosting countries and from Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Sweden. Each seminar has had up to 50 participants. The themes of the seminars were:

Cultural heritage and urban planning, Spain.

Consumerism, Slovenia.

Ethnic inclusion in Democracy, Denmark.

Rural Development and Employment, Finland.

The target group were adults of all ages who are engaged in the themes due to involvement in their civil society organizations, they are students or experts on the field or they are decision makers in the communities where we are working. The working methods were built on gathering and analyzing information, study visits, community development workshops and collecting, presenting and spreading of results. We used creative non-formal learning methods for the activities. Team-building and intercultural learning activities were supporting activities so that working on the theme was done in good cooperation and with understanding of the cultural context.

Author: Edwin Solórzano

Name of the event 4-H Global Summit

Date of the event October - November 2014 Hosting city Seoul, South Korea.

Number of domestic participants: Number of international participants: Names of the countries participated:

02 Venezuelan Participants. More than 100 international Participants More than 80 countries.

In October – November 2014 SWYAA Venezuela Project Coordinator Nathalie Wierdak and Youth Representative Luis Omar Rodríguez took part in the 4-H Global Summit: Harnessing the Power of Youth at the Olympic Parktel in Seoul – South Korea. The 4-H movement is an international youth development program that currently operates in more than 80 countries worldwide. During the Summit a full day of workshops on the following topics: Youth Development, Equity, Access, and Opportunity, Partnerships, Youth Program Development and Organizational Systems, provided the opportunity to exchange best practice and ideas among participants. The closing ceremony took place at the Olympic Stadium with more than 5.000 attendees.

Author: Nathalie Wierdak

ACTIVITIES IN THE PREVIOUS YEAR

National reunions

Name of the event GOEN Maracaibo – Sharing the Japanese Culture

Date of the event July, 2014 Hosting city Maracaibo, Venezuela.

Number of ex-PYs: 04 Venezuelan ex-PYs.

GOEN Maracaibo went to the Red Cross Association to teach low resources children how to make some basics origami, together with Japanese culture and Japanese words, also, the story and meaning behind some of the origami we taught to them. We taught them origami like the classical crane and told the kids why it is a symbol of piece, and they were really curious about it. Also we taught them some with they could play with, like the jumping frog and the balloon, which they enjoyed quite a lot. There were some like a t-shirt which could be used as an envelope and they loved the idea. As we taught them how to make the origami and their story and meaning, we taught them how the names for those origami where pronounced in Japanese, and for our surprise the kids became eager to learn more Japanese words and expressions, so we taught them how to say hello and how to say goodbye. After we made a lot of origami we gave them some juice and cookies as an afternoon snack, and to have a sharing moment with everyone. They spent that whole time playing with their frogs and balloons, asking to explain some of the folds again so they could remember them afterwards and we took some pictures with all the kids and their origami. It was a nice and different afternoon for the kids, they learned new words, about a very different culture from their own and even learned about their language. It was rewarding to see the kids having so much fun with the origami and the excitement to learn more about the Japanese culture. And we hope we can repeat the experience soon.

Authors: Lucia Faccini & Carlos J. Diaz