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In spite of the initial rainy weather, participants soon created a friendly atmosphere. The program started with interactive name games and continued with transfer to our camping place, where we all together collaborated on setting up a small camp village under the trees. More experienced ones of us were soon helping the others to build the tents as stable as possible. Later, we came back to the main venue of our activities: the sacred place of Sion.
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. The rain wasn’t about to stop making us wet and moody, so we moved to a safe and cozy place in Arry, where we were warmly welcomed and offered number of beds. Sleeping on one room all together brought us even closer and so the next day we could start in full power to cope with global issues.
Powerful “Maa-cunga!” energizer and another funny game triggered our day. In the morning, we were pleased to welcome representatives of youth from the regional council of Lorraine as well as people responsible for youth and activities on Sion. After a few introductory sentences from each representative, the time for questions and ideas came. The discussion quickly reached a dynamic flow of different opinions on hot topics like after-war relationship of German and French bordering regions, situation of Muslims in France and in Europe, women rights and other interesting areas of current affairs. We gave a special attention to the right of women to wear a burka in France and in other countries. The morning session was nicely concluded by encouraging words towards young people to be active in life, take care of politics and not to be afraid to go in and take steps to improve situation in whatever field you feel it is needed.
After a delightful lunch prepared by our favorite Italian cook Giuseppe, a sophisticated simulation game was introduced. 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.
Several photos displayed around give you the best picture how real and fruitful our conference was. The whole event was covered by special reporters group who took a lot of pictures and prepared a thorough report about the whole meeting. Click through for the whole colorful article.
The whole interesting day was topped by the intercultural dinner with culinary specialties brought by each country. To name a few tempting examples, everyone tasted special Slovenian cake with walnuts, sweet Polish “Krowki”, Czech spa wafers, Estonian wheat porridge, Turkish delight. Spanish participants didn’t miss a chance to present their almost “pork table” and Italians, the first table to be emptied by passionate gourmets, offered bread dipped into oil with tomatoes and garlic.
Back in Arry, we finally woke up to a warm, sunny day. It was the right time to go outside and see if we trust each other. Running around blind being directed by your friend, letting others catch you in their hands and other exciting games brought a lot of fun and showed that, after some time, we develop a greater mutual trust and put more responsibility on the others.
The day continued with the “Hotel Glocal” sketches, where we realized that with our bare hands and gestures, we are able to break the language barrier and get what we want from the foreign hotel receptionist. Another role playing game visually demonstrated inequalities in our society putting actors in a different distance from the same starting point. Different distances meant different scale of opportunities and challenges in their everyday life.
For the evening, each country prepared a short but catchy presentation of their homeland. We saw not only PowerPoint presentations, but also funny videos showing the main country characteristics and stereotypes in an amusing way, made by participants themselves. Success of the Spanish presentation was also supported by another table full of specialties, featuring also a freshly baked Spanish omelet.
By the next morning, it was absolutely clear, that we are no more facing the threat of rain as the blue sky and the summer sun were following us in the beautiful gardens of Sion, full of mirabelles and blossoming flowers. As usually, we started with an energizer followed by another simulation workshop 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.
In the afternoon, we moved from Sion to Nancy, the second biggest city of the region. Everybody appreciated historical beauties of the city not only during our guided tour around the main sights, but also while walking through the clean streets of the Old Town. Our visit of Nancy was topped after the sunset by an artistic movie about the history and presence of Nancy projected directly on the walls of the town hall on the central St. Stanislas square.
For our last day, we set off to Metz, capital of the region, equipped with cameras and full of thoughts to participate in the “Equality Photo contest”, which took place in the streets of Metz. The collective was divided into several groups who spent a whole nice day in Metz, taking pictures of the city and for the topic of our contest as well. After coming back, we sat down and started thinking about everything we have experiences and learned 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.
