The project has a period of 10 days dedicated to the implementation of activities between 12–23 September 2022 (2 travel days included). The location for activities is Vatra Dornei, a small picturesque mountain resort in the Carpathian Mountains of Northern Romania.

The group present at the activities will consist of 40 young people betwaeen the ages of 18 and 30 and 8 group leaders who will have no age limit, a total of 48 persons.

„Business Makers” will empower young people express their wildest ideas and to structure them in the form of a business. This will also be the opportunity for the youngsters to improve their skills in networking, to understand how to structure their ideas in a manner that can be presented to possible investors and to learn how to promote their ideas.

The main objective of „Business Makers” is to make the participants more acquainted with the business environment in the country where they live and to make them understand that putting turning your ideas into reality is not such an impossible endeavor. Going beyond the creation the businesses, the participants will learn how to make a marketing campaign, process that will end with the composure of a series of commercial that serve as a promotion outlet for products or services that the participants want to put on the market.

During the 10 activity days youth exchange, the youth will be starting a journey in which they will try to find their passion, to connect, to learn about team-work, to form a network that will help them materialize their ideas and to become young entrepreneurs that know how to promote the concepts that they created.

The program of activities was built in such a way as to allow introduction into the topic, leading gradually to fulfilling project’s objectives. We will use the following non-formal methods: name, getting to know each other and team building games, educational games, surveys and street interviews, interactive presentation methods, analysis and self-evaluation methods, brainstorming, mental maps, graphic facilitation, group discussions, debate, open space, public speaking, hiking, role-playing, teamwork, photo voice.

Activity schedule

*The schedule could suffer modifications depending on the weather,
flow of the project and the availability of our local transport.

Travel

You will arrive in Cluj-Napoca (or simply Cluj, as most Romanians prefer to call it) at the Avram Iancu Airport (CLJ). It is the only airport in the city of Cluj-Napoca and the biggest one in Transylvania: http://airportcluj.ro/

To get to the city center you will use the public transport. Bus line 5 of the local public transit system CTP Cluj-Napoca runs between the airport and the city of Cluj-Napoca. The trolleybus departs approximately every 10 minutes between 05:00 a.m. and 22:00 p.m., on weekends and evenings every 15 to 20 minutes. The airport bus stop is located 200 metres from the terminal, along the ‘Strada Traian Vuia’. It is a short walk from the terminal, you first have to go to the main road and then to the right. In the centre of Cluj-Napoca, you can get off at the stops Constanta (Regionale CFR), Sora and Central. The bus ride to one of these bus stops in the centre of Cluj-Napoca takes an average of 25 minutes. The first and final stop of bus line 5 is known as Fierul and can be found in the street ‘Strada Cuza Voda’. Tickets are available at vending machines and service counters near the bus stops. Keep in mind, it is not possible to buy a ticket from the bus driver. The price is 2.50 RON for a single ride and 5.00 RON for two journeys. In addition, you can take bus line 8 for travelling between the airport and downtown Cluj-Napoca, the bus runs about every 20 minutes and only from Monday till Friday.

Schedule for line 5: http://ctpcj.ro/index.php/en/timetables/urban-lines/linia-5

Schedule for line 8: http://ctpcj.ro/index.php/en/timetables/urban-lines/line8

As additional advice, don’t change too much money inside the airport because of the bad rates compared to the exchange offices downtown (we recommend 5-10 euro maximum).
If you choose to take a taxi, it will be your own expense because taxi fares are not refunded
in our project, having available public transport.

The arrival day to Cluj-Napoca is 12 September 2022 at maximum 18:00 in the evening!
If for some reasons you cannot manage to find tickets with arrival in the morning or in the
after-noon please email us and we will find a solution for you!
The arrival hour is like this because we need to leave for Vatra Dornei in the evening by bus and we will travel through the night, arriving possibly after midnight on 13 September 2022!

You can also arrive 1 or 2 days earlier to visit Cluj-Napoca, on your own expense.

The meeting point for the departure to Vatra Dornei will be at an accessible location
in Cluj-Napoca and set later on.

The departure back to Cluj-Napoca will be on 22 September around midnight, so make sure you have flights that leave around 6:00 at the earliest on 23 September, because we will, again, travel through the night in order to reach Cluj-Napoca on 23 September!

You can also stay in Cluj-Napoca 1-2 days later and visit, on your own expense.

Here are a few online resources to guide you if you wish to spend some additional time
in Cluj-Napoca before/after the project:

https://www.romanianfriend.com/attractions/cluj-napoca-what-to-do-guide

http://www.visitclujnapoca.ro/en/

https://wikitravel.org/en/Cluj-Napoca

For more general details about Romania you can check out the following links:

https://www.facebook.com/romaniatravel.ro/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romania

http://www.romaniatourism.com/

Our currency is the Romanian Leu (RON): 1 Euro = 4.95 RON (in June 2022)

The location

We chose a guesthouse in the outskirts of Vatra Dornei town that is close to nature, but also benefits fully from the comfort of modern life.

Here are links to the website and Facebook page of the guesthouse:

https://www.facebook.com/siady.pensiunea

https://hotelguru.ro/casa-siady-vatra-dornei

We will stay usually 2-3 persons in one room,
maybe some rooms will host a maximum of 4 persons.

We will have two persons in one bed because some rooms are designed as matrimonial rooms, but rest assure that the beds are big enough and each of you will have his own blanket.

There is signal for mobile and wi-fi internet connection throughout the establishment.

We will have our meals at the restaurant of our accommodation,
serving fresh eco products from the country side.

Attention: We will be in the middle of the Romanian mountain countryside in a place that serves traditional Romanian food. For vegetarians / vegans might be hard to adapt because here most meals contain meat and cheese products.
We will surely have vegetarian / vegan option, but please come with an open mind because you may need to eat a lot of potatoes, bread and polenta (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polenta).

We will have many typical Romanian meals with meat, cheese, eggs because most of the products served are from ecological farms and households in the area. Also, it will be permitted to consume alcoholic drinks in your free time and bring typical alcoholic drinks from your countries for the national evenings, with moderation.

If you wish to learn more about the town and the region you can check the following links:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatra_Dornei - town of Vatra Dornei

https://taradornelor.ro/en/ - the region

What to bring

• Typical food and drinks from your countries! We will have traditional evenings during the project and basically every evening will belong to a different country. Unfortunately, we don’t have budget to reimburse you the expenses made for the things that you are bringing but try to be creative and funny! You can bring typical costumes, ornaments, leaflets, posters, flyers, food, sweets, alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks… and so on! There may be the possibility to cook something using the kitchen of the establishment.

Also, you can show videos, photos, sing music and dance traditional dances from your countries! We are counting on you to make these evenings as interesting as possible and promise to help you in any way that we can!!!

• In September, weather can be cold in the mountains! Prepare for temperatures between
  20 Celsius or more during the day and as low as 10 (or below zero) Celsius during nights. It is recommended to bring some warm clothes in case it rains or you wish to stay outside during the evening, when it gets chilly. It is not impossible to see snow in October, especially on the mountains around.

• Towels and whatever you need for taking shower, washing, etc.

• Good shoes and proper clothes for outdoors. The mountains of the area are very beautiful, so we might organize one hiking trip (8-9 hours, medium difficulty) with the entire group, so it would be mandatory to have proper hiking equipment if you wish to take part. More details about that will come in the weeks before the exchange because it is important to take into consideration the weather, temperature, amount of snow and other technicalities, before venturing on a hiking path.

• Research about the situation of youth entrepreneurship and the business environment’s connection with young people in your communities. It would be wise to look into the matter before coming to Romania and during the work sessions explain and give practical examples from your countries.

• Although we can’t reimburse you the cost of health insurances, we strongly encourage you to make one! Romania is an EU member state, so an insurance for traveling here should be cheap and easy to make. If you have a European Health Card, please bring it with you, it is valid in our hospital system also and can replace a regular insurance.

Pro Civis Dorna is an independent non-profit non-governmental organization, which develops its activities mainly in Romania, at local and regional levels (Vatra Dornei and the surrounding rural areas). Our association encourages the active participation of young people into matters that concern the society, regardless of their background.

Pro Civis Dorna was established by people who developed skills while volunteering in other bigger associations and wanted to give something back to the local communities in which they were living. Its main aim is to promote the development of education, social values and stimulate the active civic participation of young people in general and from Romania, in particular, especially through:

-Encouraging youngsters towards mobility and increasing the mobility of youngsters who already are aware of its importance;

-Ensuring a positive exchange of experiences between young people in order to increase their intercultural awareness and general knowledge;

-The promotion of cooperation between youngsters belonging to different cultures and countries, mainly by underlying the importance of European unity;

-The stimulation of cultural activities and the implementation of various national and international educational programmes that respond to the social values of the European Union;

-The collaboration with other national and international organizations and institutions which have similar objectives and ideals as Pro Civis Dorna;

-The assurance of support to our members for attending various projects, courses, trainings, seminars which correspond to our domains of interest;

-The implementation of seminars, workshops, conferences and various other manifestations on themes of European importance and with national and international participants.

COVID 19

During this youth exchange we will respect all the safety and protection measures related to
covid-19, according to the legislation of the Romanian government at that given time.