continuing from the Title page...
Soon after then arrivals, participants created a friendly atmosphere. The program started with funny interactive name games to help us discover each other better and closer.
The next day, after a few energizing ice-breaking games we moved to “outsourced” country presentations. Each national group picked another country and presented it in a way they perceive this county with all its positive and negative sites, including popular stereotypes and myths. We also introduced the organizations we were coming from.
Our initial workshop was about stereotypes and what they mean for us. We separated in smaller groups and discussed with whom we would like to travel in a train department and with whom not and why. Although the aim was to come to one common solution as a whole group, we found it difficult in such a large number of people to create a compromise or tolerate someone really annoying in our train department. In the afternoon, we spread around our venue and took a lot of pictures trying to portray different views on gender equality in the society.
The next day, the organizers prepared another workshop for us. It was about a story of love and hater between Abigale and her boyfriend. We had a great discussion and although we haven’t managed to identify one person who would be the worst, we exchanged a lot of opinions about values in our lives. Workshop about refugees and immigration was scheduled after lunch. This simulation workshop was portraying a typical situation of refugees all around the world: escaping from one country to find a better life in another one. Before the real “scene” took place, we also discussed the reasons why there are so many refugees in this world, what feelings they have inside as well as what feelings are felt towards them. The later action showed a crowd of moaning families, either ill or separated or desperate, trying to negotiate with tough immigrant officers. Finally, some officers let the a few people in, followed by a passionate crowd making its way to the new country. This activity has shown how uneasy, though mostly unavoidable, is the situation of refugees. As usually in the evening before dinner, small groups met for reflecting about the learning process. After three interesting days, we have already learnt a lot! And there were still five more days ahead!
Monday was a sightseeing day. We made a trip to the second largest city of the Czech Republic - Brno, being also a capital of Moravia.This day was full of taking pictures and walking around this nice city with an old cathedral and some other remarkable sights.
The next day we visited local mayor of Hustopece and presented him our project. We also performed so called freeze in a public environment which attracted local who were surprised to see so many young people from different countries of Europe.
Wednesday morning brought a complex simulation event: a climate change forum. Aiming to raise awareness of how the real world decision making is done, we split into different special-interest groups. Countries of the world were represented by three groups with different attitudes. USA holding a position of world economic leader, not caring about effects of its industry on the environment; Germany, promoting green production and eco-friendly industrial system and finally India, developing country with too little money to care about the nature, nevertheless willing to try with support of the western world. Another part of the participants was given the role of Greenpeace or industrial lobby, who naturally defend almost contradictory politics. The whole conference was professionally moderated by United Nations.
Groups were given sufficient amount of time to prepare their arguments, build up well-considered statements and also hold preparatory meetings with other groups to collaborate together or to make an easier ground for coming to a compromise.
The whole event was covered by special reporters group who prepared a thorough report about the whole meeting. Click through for the whole colorful article.
After this very interesting workshop we had a bit of rest by the swimming pool, followed by reflexion groups. The whole day was topped by a visit in a vine cellar, which was a great experience for everyone.
The last day was spent in a happy mood of remembering what we have learnt, how we want to make a good use of it in the future.We sat down and started thinking about everything we have experienced during the whole week.
Everyone shared his feelings about the project and also the development of his learning process. This was a very pleasant time for us, because hearing all the positive emotions and new experiences brought back the funny and interesting moments of our exchange. With many different ideas what everyone has learned, we agreed that from now on, we will have a new perspective on how the global world works and what are its real problems.
