🇱🇹 Youth Exchange "ABC of Emotions", Kaunas, Lithuania

📍 Kaunas, Lithuania

📅 26.05 - 05.06.2025

👥 35 participants from 🇱🇻 🇵🇱 🇪🇸 🇷🇴 🇱🇹

💛 Hosted by EU GO Association

Emotions matter. So does mental health.

Between May 26 and June 5, our group joined young people from Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Romania and Poland for an unforgettable youth exchange in Kaunas 🇱🇹, focused on mental health, emotional awareness and well-being strategies.

This inspiring initiative brought together 35 participants who explored how to express, understand and manage emotions through non-formal education in a safe, creative and supportive environment. 💬✨

What was the project about?

The main aim of "The ABC of Emotions" was to:

• raise awareness of mental health and emotional well-being 💭

• explore creative ways to talk about emotions 🎨

• foster empathy, teamwork and inclusion 🤝

• introduce stress management tools and reflection habits 🧘‍♀️

• promote non-formal methods as powerful tools for youth work 🚀

Participants took part in a workshops and activities, including:

🧩 role-play

🗺️ collaborative drawings

🧠 experiential learning & discussions

💃 dance and body expression

🪷 mindfulness & breathing techniques

🎭 participant-led workshops

🧵 peer and self-reflection

A few highlights from our sessions:

🎭 "Guess the Emotion"

We explored what emotions are, where they come from and how they manifest in our bodies and behaviour. Participants prepared short presentations and jumped into role-playing scenes to become the emotions, creatively and bravely.

🗺️ "The Map of Emotions"

This visual and intercultural activity helped us reflect on how emotions are shown across cultures. It deepened our awareness of emotional diversity and built our empathy in surprising ways.

📚 "Reading Between the Lines"

One of five participant-led workshops - this one focused on recognizing signs of mental health problems, knowing when and how to seek help, and breaking the stigma around psychological support.

🧰 "The Stress Toolkit"

A practical and calming session where we shared daily stressors and learned simple, effective techniques to handle them, from box breathing to body scan meditation and reframing negative thoughts.

Dissemination in action:

As part of our dissemination activities, our participants, Ola and Alicja, created graphics on the topics "How to help if someone is having a panic attack?" and "The ABC of Emotions Model".

Ola, "How to help if someone is having a panic attack?"

Alicja, "Model ABC of Emotions"

💬 What did the participants say? 💬

🩷 "What I remember the most are the moments spent with other participants after the workshops. I made good connections with them and even simple things like going to the store together felt really nice. I’ll remember those times with a smile."

🩷 "The talks I had with other participants were really valuable to me. We discussed topics like career, personal growth, the environment, politics, feminism… These conversations were possible thanks to the good integration during the activities and the daily schedule, which gave us space to talk and connect."

🩷 "I’m really happy I had the chance to lead a short yoga energizer. I took a brave step and it gave me a lot of satisfaction! Another big challenge was acting in front of the group - it was scary, but such a valuable experience."

🩷 "Most useful? The practical techniques to manage stress. Most fun? The outdoor sessions like imagining different life situations, the 'if this applies to you, take a step forward' game, debate-style discussions, and even a dance contest. So many cool activities!"

More about the project can be found on our Instagram @warteuwagi.ngo!

🇪🇺 This youth exchange was hosted by EU GO Association (Lithuania) and co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme.