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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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. 

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »

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.

Read more »