Baltic EuroPeers Mingle: Estonians visited the Latvian network

On the beautiful weekend of May 17-19, the EuroPeers of Estonia and Latvia gathered
together in Riga to network, learn, brainstorm and collaborate. There were 18 participants
along with the national coordinators.

We started on Friday by melting and breaking the ice with some fun activities carried out by
both the Estonians and Latvians – for example, all of us got a portrait drawn as a co-creation
by the rest of the participants. We learnt about how both of our networks operate and what
are ways for us to collaborate in the future.

Saturday was filled with sharing our stories more deeply, planning a summer event together,
creating social media content, watching some intense moments of hockey and having a
Latvian cultural experience at the biggest Lido restaurant, dancing together with the elderly
couples. We also got the chance to visit a unique exhibition called “Invisible World” which
allowed us to experience how the world looks and feels like for visually impaired people. We
were guided through several pitch-black rooms and we had to use all other senses to
understand what was going on around us. This was an eye-opening experience and also
great for team-building as we had to communicate and help each other a lot as a group.

On Sunday, we had a wonderful trainer Ieva joining us. She led us through a big amount of fun
little activities, some of which took us out of our comfort zone. We all got some great ideas for
energizers and icebreaking activities that we can use in the future. We also assessed skills
that are necessary for performing in front of a crowd and ways how to engage the audience.
We were divided into little groups and we taught each other about topics such as Visuals,
Preparations for a Presentation, Content and Structure, Body Language and Speech, and so
on. This was very useful for us as EuroPeers, since it is linked directly to what we do!

We left this fruitful weekend with many new connections, friendships and ideas. We are hoping to see more international cooperation within the EuroPeers network in the future!

Author: Roosmari Pihlak, Member of the Estonian EuroPeers Community