Abroad // Training Course “Act out of the Box” in Coimbra, Portugal

In the beginning of January 2019, we, Lina Iona and Sarah, had the chance to leave the cold country of Germany and travel to sunny Montemor-o-Velho in Portugal. We were ready for ten days of working and living with a big group of people, as we were part of the Erasmus+ Training Course “Act out of the Box”, a project based on theatre, improvisation and active citizenship.

In the first three days, we had a lot of workshops on theatre and improvisation. Within a short time, we learned how to leave our comfort zone and dive into a world of surprises and emotions.

This was followed by a relaxing and beautiful day of exploring a historical fortress close to our venue and the legendary student town of Coimbra.

The next three days were really intense, as we were planning and preparing various short workshops in small working groups and trialling them first amongst ourselves. We then had a very exciting day in a local Gymnasium, where we had the opportunity to implement the workshops with local youngsters.

Looking back, we are taking a lot of good memories from this exchange with our group of European participants and our really professional trainers. Also in terms of new content and methods, we have learned a lot and look forward to using that knowledge back home in Germany. A big thank you also goes to NaturKultur e.V. for making this experience possible – this is certainly not going to be the last project with you and Erasmus+!

Lina, Iona & Sarah