Movies, movies, movies

Here are a few videos about what we did during the youth exchange. Enjoy!

Advanced Planning Visit of "Let Me Tell You a Story - Whisper of Exile"

Pattern interview with Siberian exile. 
Subtitles available.

Meetings With Local Community in Krasnystaw & Zamość. 
Subtitles available.

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Participant about Youth Exchange

Let me tell you a story-feelings

Chrystalla Tsoutsouki

I don’t really know how to express my feelings about this youth exchange. The first feelings appeared when I saw the topic of this exchange program. I was waiting every day for my acceptance email. You don’t find easily youth exchanges like this one, programs that are able to change your way of thinking, to teach you more than 6 years in high school managed to do.

 In addition to the project topic, partner countries interested me as well. As a person from Cyprus I find more similarities with Mediterranean countries. Therefore this difference was important for me as I would learn every single time in the project! And that was the reality. In every discussion we had, while we were eating, drinking our coffee, walking, playing I learned and I shared.

I have to say that from the first days I felt really comfortable with the place and the people there. Our trainer Andrej was also an amazing guy! Everyone had to share and was open to receive knowledge, experiences from the others.

During the interviews I felt the luckiest person in the world. Everything I read about all those years were alive in front of my eyes. They were telling their stories to some strangers not because they like to share them. Contrariwise, they didn’t want to remember those times but they wanted to let young people know in order to avoid the same mistakes again.

It was really tuff program, we worked a lot. But personally I enjoyed every single moment working as a team and creating something that was ours and it will connect us forever. Of course sometimes we argued but this is normal and desirable and you work as a team.

I loved and liked people really early, ten days for me were not enough with them. Therefore I hope we will meet soon.

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Feeling about this YE

Some says that my generation (I’m 23) is lost. We lost our way. We don’t have a goal to follow. Unfortunatelly it is very true. Even us who attends to E+ projects sometimes express the feeling that we don’t really have a next step in our mind. Or the lucky ones say they are just unsure how to reach it. This kind of discussion happened also in this project. But this is where the tables turned. In many cases when a project ends there won’t be any left of it after a given time. Of course some friendships and such but can you show it to the world? Not not really. This is why not only this project but every Let me tell you a story felt so different.  It gave you a goal a really clear goal to achieve. We had to work as a real team and we knew that every time we press a button on our keyboard we are creating something which will has a great meaning to many people, and of course for us. For those days every doubt disappeared from us. It was very relieving. The feeling that you creating something is always nice. Most of the times I do two things which helps me. Gardening and writing. This time was more writing which was very enjoyable for me. Also taking those long walks into the blank whiteness was marvelous especially when I found a forest after I crossed some fields. 

Yet there is also another aspect which is worth to mention. Is that we have met all those people from an era which is still affecting us very heavily even to this day. It covers the whole region like a shadow. But we are still forgetting it slowly but surely. Our little books or memorandums will help maybe not too much but will still help to remember. That’s also something to think of. After all this project was incredibly wonderful. When you got to any project time stops you and your group are covered in a big bubble and there is a strange and unique atmosphere which is similar and kinda feels like home even from the first time. In this project our bubble went back in time. That’s something  that very rarely happens. Me and I think all of the project group felt honored that we were able to met those people and to talk to them. For example the person who gave interview for my part of the team asked us to give him autographs so he can show it to his relatives and friends that we were here. Now many days passed but it’s still hard to put it into words. Its not something you can’t express it’s something you would express much much longer and with very deep details.
So before i lose my train of thought i will leave you guys there.

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Farewell to Motycz

After figuring out what to put inside of our sandwiches (sorry Christina for we didn’t left any for you) and slowly gathering all our bags into one big pile. It was time to leave. Some of us already left. Our little roller coaster which was still somehow was shaped as a bus. Started to speed up and the vast white fields slowly disappeared behind us. Our 3 hour long journey was the same as usual. Loud laughs, some sleeping or just silently enjoying the company of others. Even that we did not want to belive in it at first. We realised we reached the capital. We jumped out of the bus. Grabbed our luggage. To wander around a bit in the city. First we lost what is left of the Romanian team and then the Czech. Only the brave Cypriots and Hungarians dared to stand against the cold winds. Until we found shelter in the mall at the Central Station. Where a really nice lady was giving away free lollipops. We got separated into two mixed teams, and we went to the Uprising Museum. We spent like 3 hours there maybe a bit less or even more. The museum was amazing every detail and part. It felt like a theater where instead of actors the walls and columns were the ones telling the tale. After a point the others actually had to ring us up to meet and leave. We went back to the station, and we found our lost Romanians who managed to walk for a good 1,5 hour to reach their accomondation which was 10 minutes from where the bus left us.

Nevertheless we were happy to see them. So we had a great feast together. Also i went to buy some Soplica as it is the best gift anyone can think of. 

Unfortunatelly me and Szabolcs had to leave at 19:30 and slowly more and more people left. But of course with our final hugs and goodbyes we promised to visit and meet each other if we can. 

Afterall these invisible dotted lines are what matter the most.

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LARP day

The day started off as usual with breakfast but we were already feeling the pressure of it being the last day. We knew we had to say goodbye quite soon and we had gotten so attached to our friends, we really didn’t want to. After breakfast we had an energizer and a brief session on the LARP game, even though we were sad the days spend in Motycz were slowly slipping away, we were anticipating the game.

The scenario was simple: one classroom in which the best two students were drug dealers because they couldn’t afford going to University otherwise. Layla and Charles were brilliant in physics and chemistry but had limited means of supporting themselves through uni, so the solution was dealing drugs. Their polar opposites were Peter and Bobby, scoundrels and rebels, they didn’t care about school, they cared only about having fun and they were very disruptive. The teachers played by our colleagues Crystalla and Emese were brilliant, supportive of the students and trying to make them achieve something in life. The whole plot was that one girl from the class, Laura, had killed herself because some nude pictures of her were leaked on Facebook and suspicions were running at an all time high, who was it?

The first suspect was of course her boyfriend, Dean, but he didn’t seem to know much or played the innocent part very, very well. He was busy in trying to get everyone in the classroom on his side, even the princess of the group tended to believe his story and even the nerds. The psychologist of the school started snooping around and asking questions…even Headmaster Johnson was a suspect. To add even more pressure, the police was there all the time and tried to pry as much information out of the students as possible: nerd Marc was terrified and even the problem students were. The cleaning lady seemed to know way more than she was letting on and was constantly spying on everyone. A journalist, the mother of Layla was trying to kick start her career with the news but was she using all the material she knew or was she cherry picking?

In the end, after two hours of pure fun we had to call it a day. Charles was arrested on suspicion of being guilty and so were headmaster Johnson and the character played by Razvan (a troubled boy, always a prankster, never paying attention to the class). The rest of us could breathe easily. This game bonded us even more, we had to act a little bit and try to stay in character during the whole two hours and that was a little difficult but definitely not impossible.

The last evening was bitter sweet, we all played Mafia, cards, pool and discussed about the lives we were going back to, nobody really wanted to return home and everybody secretly wished we could stop time and this night would last longer. We sang together, we promised we would meet again, we ate together and we exchanged goodbye notes, hoping that in the era of technology we would manage to stay connected because our time in Motycz managed to bond us maybe for life. Without sounding too corny, I guess we can safely say that this was probably the most memorable Erasmus+ program in which we took part and, definitely, not the last.

Let us hope we meet again, for we are young and the world is our playground and if we dream something we can do it…

With love,

Adelina from Romania

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Meetings with student in Krasnystaw

 Yesterday we visited high school in Krasnystaw where we had a chance to meet local students. We split into different teams based on whom we interviewed in the previous days of our project. Our team had the opportunity to share the basic ideas of Erasmus+ and of our project. Not only were the students communicative and willing to express their opinions, but also were opened for further participation in Erasmus+ mobilities. On top of that, some tasty donuts in occasion of Polish national holiday were prepared for us. Afterwards, the whole group performed icebreaking activity let by our group leader Marty. Not surprisingly, this activity included singing, jumping, and screaming. As a result, we could feel much stronger connection between all of us.

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Working on interviews

The days started as usual with a delicious breakfast. After that, in order to get more awake, we did funny energizers and suddently we were ready to start our tasks. We went back to our teams and we started to work on our interviews.

Firstly, we started replaying our recordings and wrote them all down so as not to lose any important details of our interviews with the people that were exiled to Siberia. Everyone had a certain amount of time of recording, so that being 6 in a team really helped us out. Each of us typed his or her part of the interview which ranged from 10 minutes to 35 minutes depending on how long the witness to history wanted to share. But that was just the easy part. After that, it was us who had to write the questions and answers and make it more presentable.

Because so many decades passed since the events happened, let’s just say that putting the interviews in a chronological order proved a bit problematic. Nevertheless, because the information that we found out during our trip was so precious, everything worked out in the end.

Since the brochures had to be distributed in schools and libraries in Poland, we needed to have them translated by our Polish colleagues whom we thank for their patience and hard work. After all was comitted to paper, the finishing touches were made: proofreading, finding quotes, finding pictures, the appropriate introductions, page fitting and so on.

As we wanted to raise awareness in the town of Zamość about our project and our interwees, we tried to devise an interesting few paragraphs and had them printed aut on leaflets. We also established together that we would make a banner on which one talented colleague would draw and several others would add powerful quotes or phrases. Mass media also paid us a visit and our wonderful colleague from Cyprus, Cistina and another colleague from the Czech Republic, Dali, appeared on national television.

Because all work and no play makes things dull, we had a very funny debate about whether our Romanian leader should cut his hair or not. The proposition team was voting for the haircut and the opposition team against it. The public was actively participating and was even taking sides, the atmosphere was more lively than in our national Parliaments, the enthusiasm was almost tangible in the air. The arguments of the proposition team were hilarious: a change of look is needed as we always change our clothes, girls might appreciate a new look and success may be an outcome, things may be on a more positive side in case of a job interview and having the same look is boring. The living example of the impact a haircut can have in getting more popular,were two peers that cut their hair during our time here in Motycz and their popularity with girls on facebook went up.

The opposition supported the idea that consent is mandatory and these type of things should not be established arbitrary, also, on a funny side, winter is coming and a short haircut is not an ideal one in these circumstances.

We then voted for the best team and best speaker, voting which was contested and accusations of rigged elections flew up in the air. In the end, hands were shaken and peace was made.

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Articles about us

There are few materials which appear in Polish media. Links will be updated.

* Interview on website Zamojska.pl
http://www.zamojska.pl/wiadomosci/2031,video-milosnicy-historii-z-europy-poznaja-losy-zam

* Article on website Tygodnik Zamojski
http://www.tygodnikzamojski.pl/artykul/88267/zamosc-bdquochodz-opowiem-ci-historie-szept.html

* Article on website Kurier Zamojski
 http://www.kurierzamojski.pl/wiadomosci/szept-zeslancow-losy-zamojskich-sybirakow/

* Interview in "Panorama Lubelska"
http://lublin.tvp.pl/35942707/rozmowy-mlodziezy-z-zeslancami-z-zamojszczyzny

* Article on website Roztocze.net
http://roztocze.net/zamosc-milosnicy-historii-z-europy-beda-poznawac-losy-zamojskich-sybirakow/

* http://zyciezamoscia.pl/reportaze/lekcja-historii-na-rynku-solnym/

* http://www.zamojska.pl/wiadomosci/2031,video-milosnicy-historii-z-europy-poznaja-losy-zam

* http://www.zamojska.pl/wiadomosci/2057,video-opowiedz-mi-swoja-historie-szept-wygnancow

* http://zamosc.naszemiasto.pl/artykul/rozmawiali-z-sybirakami-szykuja-publikacje-projekt,4404026,artgal,t,id,tm.html

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Interview day

The project group was very excited on the 5th of Feb. It was time to prove ourselves. After eating our

breakfast a little bit faster than the usual. We rounded up and went to time-travel.

It was time to make the interviews. We arrived to a nice brick building, and got introduced to the

witnesses. This part was really cute. Finishing the basic introduction, some of us had to go away to

visit the witness at home. My team actually got lost a little. Maybe it was because the winter

wonderland which mesmerized us on our way thanks to the snowy forest.

Nevertheless we arrived. Mr. Sitkowski was waiting for us. None of us would have guessed how

dangerous and adventurous years he had in his life if they did’t tell us before. He was really calm and

clear. Also he seemed strong even above 90.

Of course we introduced ourselves, and he started talking. The clock stopped we weren’t able to feel

the time anymore. It was only him who didn’t lost his sense of time.

He was telling his story for a little bit more than a hour. Then he told us he had enough. It was time

for us to leave with our new experiences of an old story. But before leaving he told us to check the

memorial of his village, and give him autograms so he can show his relatives we were here.

For me it was both funny and yet honorable. Since it should have been us asking for that kind of

thing. Then we went to the memorial. The snow covered everything. In the blank whiteness the

white crosses looked like natural creations. We stopped for a moment, and then we went back to the

others. They were having a lunch together with the witnesses. We joined. One hour after we were on

our way back. We preparred to start the work and even that it was adviced to just make some small

steps since everyone was tired. Some of us got so motivated they did a half day work on the rest of

the night.

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Pattern interview

The day started out very nice, as we had a very nice prepared breakfast. One of the most important days of the project, was about to start. Thirst for knowledge came to my mind, just imagine the courage of this person to be able to express herself in front of thirty ´´strangers´´. Unbelievable, for the next two hours I just wanted to listen and envision her story. We couldn’t imagine walking in other people’s shoes being so difficult. Barbara’s story was amazing and will stay unforgettable. Everyone truly felt honoured to be in the room, her story moved us. 

We must learn from history, so we don’t repeat mistakes but just picture listening to a real story, what knowledge you can gain. This experience had exceeded all are expectations of this project. After the interview we had a lovely lunch. Full of excitement we started in teams to pattern the questions for the interviews. It may sound easy, but we truly believe that it was a big challenge for everyone. Just imagine not knowing the person you will interview, what should we ask? What we shouldn’t ask? Will the interviewee need a push to speak? Some of these questions came to our minds… After long team discussions, all teams had created the interview structure. On the one hand we were full of various emotions but at the same time full of enthusiasm about tomorrow day.

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Interview with Adelina from Romania

How was your journey?

It was very good, just 2 hours in plane, but then about 3-4 hours by bus which nobody of us

expected. (laughing)

How did you get to know about this project?

It’s actually very funny. Erasmus+ 3 months ago was super funny, it was a training course and I liked

it very much. Then my friend wrote an application for this project, which is my third, and told me to

come along. But I was wondering - will we discuss all days only the topic of holocaust? But now I see the theme is much more complex so it’s better.

How do you enjoy this project?

We had a lot of ice breaking games, I got to know everyone quite quick, then it was very easy to ask

other people about their country, traditions. This makes project very interesting. I am looking

forward to do the interviews, we’re trying to preserve the history.

Why do you think these projects are important?

I read a lot about history, the villages in Romania are not as populated as they used to be, houses are empty, and it gives a feeling that you are losing your heritage, people move to big cities but you lose a part of yourself, and a part of national history. So it’s important to keep that part of our history.

Why should young people participate in these projects?

I am amazed, some people here are 18 years old and they know so much about history, human

rights, EU, they are very well informed, and they can become citizens that know how to vote and

why. That’s how we can overcome prejudices and thus to find the healthy way of thinking.

Can these projects help you find a good job?

It’s not directly related to my career but now I know which country has many posibilities for me and

it helps me in my personal development. And you can also discover how you can make things better

in your own country.

What is your last message?

I think these types of projects are great, they are for people of all ages. For me it would be interesting to send my parents to this project as they don’t know much about this problematic, they have

prejudices and it would help them to overcome them.

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Second day here

Yesterday was the second day for us being here. We were already familiar with each other, we were comfortable making jokes and some of us were already tying friendships with people from the other groups. We had the chance to get some rest from the very long road to here. We took a 4 hour ride from Warsaw to get to our current acomodation place. The day started like every other day would. We had breakfast and made some small talk at the table. After the breakfast and some teambuilding activities, the coordinator presented the structure of an Erasmus+ YE project, how it is written, how and from where we get the financial support and how we spend the money. The idea of the project was introduced to us through a very interesting and interactive game. We placed on the floor the capitals of our countries, trying to make a map. Then, each of us had to stay in the place according to the places where we were born, where our parents and grandparents were born, finding many interesting things about each other. Some of us have different roots, and many of our family members went through conflicts, especially during the world wars. We also discovered that many of us didn’t know a lot about our great grandparents, and we noticed that the history of our families are getting blurry after 2 generations, so that’s why it is important to preserve history as an important part of who we are.

After, we had a workshop about the people we are going to interview, and we learnt how to take the interviews, taking into consideration that the subject is very sensitive. The workshop that followed was about the LARP – Live Action Role Play, a game that we will have today. After explaining the rules and sharing our previous experiences, dinner followed, and then many of us had fun cooking our own traditional dishes and preparing ourselves for the Intercultural Evening. We, the Romanian team, cooked a traditional dessert, called Papanasi. It was a tremendous and joyful part of the day, because we almost never cook at home, so here you have, 6 Romanians fighting over ingredients, bowls, giving commands but being way too afraid touching the flour, while having to deal with Hungarian sabotage. However, the cookies were very nice and everyone fought over them in the Conference Room, where we held the event. Our colleagues from Cyprus prepared halloumi soup and everybody else brought something, traditional foods and drinks. We discovered many new things about other countries and how each one of us have different or similar culinary influences, depending on our geographical position. Also, we were very amazed to see that some Polish people know Romanian dances better than we do, and overall we observed during the intercultural evening the wonderful bounds that tie us together.

We look forward to the rest of the project, with much anxious and very happiness.

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First day together in Motycz Leśny

Our second day begun with a nice breakfast and a cup of coffee. The hungarian team welcomed us with a simple and creative name game. 

In this game each one had to introduce himself with a special movement. We have to admit that after that we begun to remember all participants names... ok perhaps not all of them. 

After our first contact, bonding naturally took place. Following this, the polish team introduced us an activity where we were split in pairs. We were put to answer different questions related to our local festivities, norms, dress code and there was a discussion. This gave us a great opportunity to get to know each other. After a lot of work, we were exhausted and we needed food... and yes lunch was ready. After finishing our lunch, the Cypriot group organised an intercultural communication workshop. Main aim of the workshop was to explore why culture is important and to form a more comprehensive understanding of culture as a framework of values, attitudes and behaviors. We had various activities such as greetings in different languages, discussed various subjects about our culture and values. We had a chance to express ourselves through interactive conversations.

Key objectives were to enable participants to reflect on their own understanding of culture, and its influences. This also contributed in raising awareness for both visible and non-visible

components of culture. 

Later on an amazing activity took place that had as a goal to increase our self-awareness through self-reflection. There were four different posters with definitions for personality traits. We 

got to decide on how much we were most related to. This process gave us the opportunity to have a self evaluation without us realising this was what we were doing.

Continuing our evening we had dinner, after it we created our group contract.  Divided in four teams we exchanged opinions, came up with what's important and what should be set as ground rules.

As a whole we concluded to the final contract rules, something that each individual put his/hers signature on.

Overall the day was about the team-building and bonding for our future co-operation. 

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From home to Polska

The Hugarian team has found 3 different ways to travel to Poland. We have had the

freedom to choose among many kinds of transportation which were the most convinient for

each. We come from different cities. Some of us from the capital and others from the country

side. The sending-organisation has helped us a lot with buying the tickets and managing our

journey. We could keep in touch through a facebook-group which was created for this

purpose therefore none of us felt left alone.

As you have the opportunity to manage your travel individually, you can choose your

own itinerary. You should keep that in mind while you are planning your route that you have

2 days to tarvel at your disposal before and after the program taking place. In this case, you

have the chance to visit other countrys for short period of time to make your journey more

adventoures. One of us has choosen to travel to Poland through Ukraine where she spent a day

and night to discover Lviv on her own. One of us arrived to Lublin.

Another participant who lives far away from the capital was invited to the team

leader’s apartment to make him more comfortable and safe before departure and they have

travelled together to Poland by a night train which was also exciting experience to share. They

arrived to Warsaw and met the rest of the team at Chopin Airport and then the whole team has

been taken to Motycz Lesny by micro bus that has been shared with the Czech and Cyrus

teams as well.

The other part of our team met at the airport of Budapest in the early morning hours. A fun

fact about the trip: one of the girls we didn’t meet in the orientation meeting neither she had a

FB profile picture, it was almost impossible to find her in the airport but fortunately she found

us. The traveling itself was not too long, it took only 5O minutes. We managed to sleep a little

bit and get ready for the youth exchange. After landing at the airport of Warsaw we reunited

with the Hungarian participants, we had some minutes for a small talk and then the organizers

called us to provide with the exact meeting point inside of the airport. Polish volunteers were

waiting for the participants from Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary in the airport, they also

reserved a minibus for taking us to Motycz Lesny.

We moved in our rooms and made us comfortable. We shared a lunch together and attended

the orientational meeting. During the session, we were engaged in planning the fun activities

that help us in establishing good atmosphere and teams for the future work. Meanwhile all the

teams arrived finally.

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Introduction

‘Let me tell you a story - Whisper of exile’ is a third part of historical project prepared by members of our organization. Before we have cooperated in frames of this topic with Zamojskie Voluntary Service Association. Due to development of participants who were involved in historical projects we have started our organization and from now on we will be responsible to keep spirit of this idea alive.

In previous parts of the project we have discussed deeply topic of temporary and concentration camps prisoners during WWII and life of Polish partisans during WWII. We have made interviews with witnesses of that time and published their stories.

With the Project ‘Let me tell you a story - Whisper of exile’ we want to discuss issue of Europeans who were exiled to Siberia during and after the WWII. Lubelskie region of Poland still have living witnesses of that times who are able to share their stories with next generations.

We will work with proven non formal education methods, advertise and disseminate results.

Methods: Integration games, team building, intercultural communication workshop, orienteering game, reflection groups, Live Action Role Play, brainstorming, intercultural simulation, World cafe, history witness interview, press conference, city game, presentation, discussion, trip, happening, exhibition.

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