Nurture Earth and spirit
Resilience through Nature and Art
07.08.-18.08.2025, Mokovec Farm, Slovenia
Born out of calling, in August was hosted the first youth exchange in Mokovec Farm with intention of supporting young people in their building of resilience. The idea was to give young people space to experience community, nature and art; and to feel part of the whole process. The core team consisted of six young people, mentored by Prija Barbara Balan, whose paths crossed thanks to shared dream – to share precious space of permaculture farm with others in order to give them a chance to dive deeper into themselves. All of them having profound self-discovery experiences thanks to spending time in nature felt inspired to facilitate similar meetings for youth from Slovenia, Spain, Hungary. At the same time opening this space for the contribution of others that happened through activities offered as workshops of Open Space. “Another thing that made this youth exchange so special was the open spaces for the participants to bring in their workshops, I remember sketching, writing, makrame, bachata and many more spontaneous ideas that became reality within days or sometimes hours.”
During 12 days the group enjoyed having the hands-on experience of living on the farm, involving learning about sowing calendar, sustainable practices and getting their hands dirty with actual work to learn about sustainability and permaculture. Through clay and paint they were exploring expressing themselves through art. In various movement exercises and hike to Golek, they spent a lot of time in the forest, in the nature. One participant recall that:” I loved the workshop space in the forest where we expressed ourselves in many different ways., through movement, dance, playfulness, slowness, art and beautiful sharing.”
The preciousness of this experienced was created by deep sense of connection between the people and them trying their best to translate the harmony of nature into the harmony of community they cocreated together.
Video from the project
Testimonials
And what did we experience and learn?
»Grounding, authentic and beautiful. It feels like we strip away everything except the essential of what it means to live and to have a good life. To feel the earth and connect to the rest of the senses, which we can give less attention to, was really beautiful. The biggest insight I would say has been how important it’s to be present and loving, with ourselves and others. «
~Matthew Jacob
»This youth exchange was quite special for me because it is quite rare to built such deep and meaningful connections within just two weeks. Already from the beginning of the exchange, we co-created a wonderful soft and authentic space that continued to grow. After this time we shared, I feel deeply connected with these wonderful souls, I learned a lot about how I can nourish and prioritize my belonging to the earth and I cannot wait to organize more exchanges in the future. «
~Chalulu
»It's inspiring to see how Erasmus plus can create something so beautiful in 12 days. I liked to see how we changed from unknown people to a community. I sometimes enjoyed watching people eating, while having funny conversations. I loved watching the shooting stars together and dancing at night or singing near the fire. I felt in the right place, I felt safe, loved and happy. « ~Carlos
