Empowering Stories
I'm just very inspired by the concept of young people proving their worth
Story of Vivian
Vivian, a 20-year-old girl from Narva who has been a communicator and link for the Start Art/Act team for three years, told about organizing a summer music festival. Now the girl studies at UvA at the faculty of media and culture.
Before the Summer Ends Tomorrow/ Summer Comes Tomorrow festivals, which have been going on for three years now the Vivian team, in collaboration with VitaTiim, organized a "big youth get-together" as part of the big Start Art/Act initiative. The goal was to gather as many young people as possible and connect them with creativity. The guys were eager to do something of their own. The beginning of the team meeting was Vivian's message in the VitaTiim general chat about the meeting about the festival. Six guys banded together, and they became the organizers of the future festival. Vivian's team started organizing themselves and opened their own MTÜ.
"Because I and our whole team were indirectly connected with creativity, we decided that it would be a music festival," says Vivian. As the girl says, there was a lot of work. First of all, the guys tried to structure the action plan: "Where can we find money, and if we can, how much? What are the plans for different budgets? Whom do we need more support from? Which musicians can we afford financially and who do we want to see?"
In the first year, the partners did not yet know the Summer Ends/Comes Tomorrow brand and did not quite trust, that created problems for the team. But these are not all the difficulties that the incredible six faced. The first year turned out to be difficult also because the guys did everything quite intuitively, which brought an incredible amount of work and worries. On the other hand they made a lot of working useful contacts that helped them with the organization over the next two years, and it was with these contacts that the guys collaborated outside the festivals. "For three years, until we all left for the armies and universities, we did various small events in parallel." Over and beyond professional skills, Vivian has gained extensive teamwork experience over the years of organizing the festival. The team often broke up and spent up, due to different priorities of the group members, but the young people found common ground and continued with the work of organizing the festival. With the second year came awareness. "We sat down to write a normal business plan. We calculated incomes, expenses and started to earn something." The third year turned out to be the most mature and reliable, both because of the appeared partners and because of the skills and experience gained in the previous years of the organization.
What encouraged?
"I joined VitaTiim when I was 13. I'm just very inspired by the concept of young people proving their worth. We were 16 when we started. We thought, yes, we can do anything. I had an itch to do something of my own, to try to grow and develop on my own."
3 great fears
1) "In the first year, the biggest fear was that the format would fail, it would be inappropriate, there would be too much of everything, or suddenly people would not understand what to do."
2) "When half an hour before the start you are afraid that no one will come to the event. It's generally that you never can tell, even if the festivals of past years were successful."
3) "Emotional burn-out and insomnia as the festival is emergency work. You have a clear plan, but some failures will happen all the time. Sometimes I could not sleep for three days for the simple reason that there was a lot of work. At the last moment, something comes out that we didn't think of at the beginning and it needs to be done now. I was always very scared that you came up with something impossible, you did it, but you worked so hard and became so tired that you would never do anything again," says Vivian.
What did you feel after achieving your goal?
"An Immense feeling of pride in yourself, because you have got through it all. I am energized by people who come. I see how everyone is having fun at the event and this is the main result of my work. Acknowledgments usually go to artists, volunteers, and in general to people who are in the public eye. Organizers stand in the background.
That's why people's comments are very encouraging."
Before the Summer Ends Tomorrow/ Summer Comes Tomorrow festivals, which have been going on for three years now the Vivian team, in collaboration with VitaTiim, organized a "big youth get-together" as part of the big Start Art/Act initiative. The goal was to gather as many young people as possible and connect them with creativity. The guys were eager to do something of their own. The beginning of the team meeting was Vivian's message in the VitaTiim general chat about the meeting about the festival. Six guys banded together, and they became the organizers of the future festival. Vivian's team started organizing themselves and opened their own MTÜ.
"Because I and our whole team were indirectly connected with creativity, we decided that it would be a music festival," says Vivian. As the girl says, there was a lot of work. First of all, the guys tried to structure the action plan: "Where can we find money, and if we can, how much? What are the plans for different budgets? Whom do we need more support from? Which musicians can we afford financially and who do we want to see?"
In the first year, the partners did not yet know the Summer Ends/Comes Tomorrow brand and did not quite trust, that created problems for the team. But these are not all the difficulties that the incredible six faced. The first year turned out to be difficult also because the guys did everything quite intuitively, which brought an incredible amount of work and worries. On the other hand they made a lot of working useful contacts that helped them with the organization over the next two years, and it was with these contacts that the guys collaborated outside the festivals. "For three years, until we all left for the armies and universities, we did various small events in parallel." Over and beyond professional skills, Vivian has gained extensive teamwork experience over the years of organizing the festival. The team often broke up and spent up, due to different priorities of the group members, but the young people found common ground and continued with the work of organizing the festival. With the second year came awareness. "We sat down to write a normal business plan. We calculated incomes, expenses and started to earn something." The third year turned out to be the most mature and reliable, both because of the appeared partners and because of the skills and experience gained in the previous years of the organization.
What encouraged?
"I joined VitaTiim when I was 13. I'm just very inspired by the concept of young people proving their worth. We were 16 when we started. We thought, yes, we can do anything. I had an itch to do something of my own, to try to grow and develop on my own."
3 great fears
1) "In the first year, the biggest fear was that the format would fail, it would be inappropriate, there would be too much of everything, or suddenly people would not understand what to do."
2) "When half an hour before the start you are afraid that no one will come to the event. It's generally that you never can tell, even if the festivals of past years were successful."
3) "Emotional burn-out and insomnia as the festival is emergency work. You have a clear plan, but some failures will happen all the time. Sometimes I could not sleep for three days for the simple reason that there was a lot of work. At the last moment, something comes out that we didn't think of at the beginning and it needs to be done now. I was always very scared that you came up with something impossible, you did it, but you worked so hard and became so tired that you would never do anything again," says Vivian.
What did you feel after achieving your goal?
"An Immense feeling of pride in yourself, because you have got through it all. I am energized by people who come. I see how everyone is having fun at the event and this is the main result of my work. Acknowledgments usually go to artists, volunteers, and in general to people who are in the public eye. Organizers stand in the background.
That's why people's comments are very encouraging."
Interviewer: Viktoria Savitševa