Karolina Interview

How it was to translate interview with 'living history witness'?

 For me being a translator was very good experience, but it was full of hard moments too. We had prepared questions, interviewers were asking and I was translating. I tried not to skip any information and to be as much precise in translating as possible.

 It was difficult, because some questions were very personal and brought back sad memories. I needed to know when to stop the interview and start different topic. It was also hard to use two languages in the same conversation. There was a time when I started to mix Polish and English.

 In general I think my translation was as accurate as it needed to be. I saw that every participant was really interested in the story. Our group was cooperating well and the interviewed lady was very kind for us and patient when I was translating. I am happy that I could listen to her story and pass it to others. 

What do you remember the best?

 What I remember best was when we had short breaks during our interview. We stopped asking serious questions and just let the lady ask hers. She was very curious which country every participant comes from and she wanted to get to know more about them. When she heard the answer she was saying: “I remember when I was there...” and then she started to tell us about her trips and experiences from those countries. It was very pleasant to listen to.

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Interview with a representant of Cyprus "See Why" Informal group.

1. Why did you join project with your group

2. What do you think about idea of 'living history lesson' method

3. You were participant of 'Let me tell you a story II'. How you would advertise such project for young people who did not participate in previous parts?

As “See Why”, one of the main aims we have as a group is the promotion of peaceful coexistence on a local, European and global levels. Every month we organize local educational events on this topic. We are hoping that through our participation in similar projects, we will gain useful knowledge and skills that will help us in our future activities and at the same time we will show other participants and partner organizations some good practices that we have already been using in Cyprus.

We are collaborating with the founder of HEureka Generator, Andrzej Smyk and other partner organizations for a long time now and we have very good communication between us. Each one of us  have also participated in the previous part of “Let me tell you a story” project and we are very satisfied with the results and the impact of the youth exchange, so the idea to do a third part came very natural.

The “living history lesson” method is something that we all like the beginning. We saw that even participants who are not interested in the history of WWII so much were so enthusiastic and interested to learn more and more after their participation on “Let me tell you a story II” and that is because we showed them history from a different teaching perspective. We have also noticed that even our guests felt useful, happy and even relieved that the society, and especially the youngsters, want to learn something from them and that will make the world a better place.

Since recent history, my country Cyprus suffered many conflicts, fights and wars. Our island is still divided and the wounds are still here. We are trying to communicate with local elderly people who are interested in taking part in projects with “living history lesson”. Next month, we are having our first attempt in ‘’living history lesson’’ on a local educational trip that we are planning to do. If we have good results and impact, next year we are thinking even to write a project within Erasmus+ that will take place in Cyprus.

As a group, when we participate in projects, we always explain to our participants the importance of acting as multipliers by sharing the knowledge they gain through their participation. So, at the end of each project we guide our participants to show the others who didn’t had the chance to participate what they have learned. We are always very flexible and supportive with the method each participant prefers to use, because we understand the uniqueness of each individual. Some of them prefer to use videos, others like writing articles, making presentations, showing photos, speaking on the radio etc.

Since I was one of the participants on the second part of “let me tell you a story”, I have chosen the ‘’presentation method’’ to explain to other members of our group what I have learned. I have also used the facebook account of our group to share my experience with our members. Since one of the main aims of “let me tell you a story” was to create a book, as soon as I received my copies I went to the Cyprus national agency and some local NGOs we were collaborating with and I presented them a few things regarding my experience.

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Interview with Polish Participan

Introduce yourself 
My name is Oskar Nowakowski and I am part of HEureka Generator team. I am a teenager and a student in high school where my mainly interested in history. I am studying history during most of my free time, but it isn't something that I am forced to do. I just like it.




Why do you like history ? 
I don't really know. It's as simple as that. Sometimes I just think about myself that I've been born in the wrong century  and that's why I always wanted to know how the world looked like in the past. It's simply my hobby and a way of improving myself by comparing me to my ancestors and learn from their mistakes.



What do you expect from this youth exchange? 
I will have an opportunity to learn something new. Maybe something I didn't know and that's my main goal for this youth exchange. I  always want to be more aware of things which happened to all these  people who got deported to Siberia.


What are your ideas to advertise our publication after youth exchange ?
I want to advertise it in the future by making things viral in the Internet. For example a blog or a fan page would be nice.

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First interview with the member of Hungarian Team

                              

 Introduce yourself 

My name is Savannah Pál, from Hungary. I am 18 years old, and this is my last year in high school. I am exactly before the last exams. This is the period, when people should think what they would like to do with their life, for the first time. I always knew, that I would like to work with people, and somehow help, in making this World a better place. Of course it sounds naive, because most of the people start their life like this and then end up as a shop assistant in a food store, but if we look it thoroughly they do help, everyone need food. I would like to protect people, not individuals more like groups of people with negative discrimination. I believe we are equal. We born as equal person, and then what we do with our own life is our business but we should remain equal in every situation. This could be one answer to the question, “Why am I so interested in both Word Wars and the tragedies caused by the overturned values.” When I made my decision, how to continue after high school, considering these, I chose a university course which can equip me knowledge about law and social sciences at a foreign University.

Why do you find history of XX. Century interesting topic for a project?

I would say a project, with historical topic is completely different from a project with any other topic. I am not saying it is better or worst, it is only different and this difference makes me delighted. I think history, is one of the best teachers in the World, learning from the past’s failures could help a lot not to make them again. Those events, through the XX. century are not to ever happen again so for this reason learning and spreading knowledge about this period is pivotal. When we learn about history in the school we cram all the important dates and fights, but it doesn’t really has a “face”. Learning in non-formal way, in this case learning by listening tales, gives a “face” to it. I think this is the important part, to realise the exact weight of these events, because some from those youngsters going to be the leaders of countries they must be aware of these. The only problem is that we don’t know who, so we only have the hope that those going to make this change who has the right knowledge. Discussions about history between young adults from different countries can teach a lot. We all have different backgrounds and opinions, sharing these could bring new perspectives or at least make people more sure about their point. I think both of these processes really beneficial.

Why do you want to be part hungarian group in 3rd part of project?

 For this question the first answer which has came to my mind was “to understand it better”. Sometimes it is only easier, not to talk and think about those unbelievable events which has happened in the XX. century, but I think this is the worst thing to do, and actually we don’t have the right to do it. So, we should learn about it as much as it is possible, of course there are many people who don’t have any care in these fields, but they should know about it, to not make these happened again. I know I can’t protect those people who have been victims of these events because they are already victims, but what I can do is to overtake the repetition of these events. So if I have the chance to translate knowledge from life stories and broadcast it, I can’t define how much happy am I.

 What is best memory you have from the interviews?

 I have a lot. After the project, I worked a lot with those interviews and I built up my personal statement, university application, around this topic. I sent my application to 5 universities, and I received 4 offers, this fact made me more sure about what we did there is amazing, but this is not my best memory, this is something nice. I lost my grandma few years ago, she was the World to me. This project gave me my polish grandma. While I am writing this I still have to fight with my tears. This is something which I am really grateful but the word “grateful” not that much able to make the reader feel what this means to me. She gave me her address, we are writing letters to each other, she sends me cards for my birthday, Christmas and Easter. I send her pictures about my prom and about other important graduating events. Opening her letters, waiting for the translation makes me the happiest kid on Earth. She is considering me as her grand-grand children, so what this project gave me is indescribable.

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