Last Day

On the last day of the project we all had a lie in. When we eventually woke up, we headed to the nearby lake for the day. A day full of sun, icecream, paddle boats and swimming. It was such a beautiful last day for the project.

However, the Danish then had to leave so that they would catch their flight in time. Once it kicked in that they were leaving and that the project was over, it resulted in a huge crying session. Emotions were high and sad music played as our lovely Danish participants parted ways.
"See you soon" - Alfred

"I feel sad. It was so great to spend this week with such amazing talented people and to create such strong connections with them. I know that we will see each other again." - Amy

Performance Day

After a week of hard work, all 51 of us got into a bus and made our way to Logroño.

On arrival, we were greeted by IRJ – the Spanish administration for youth activities and culture. We even had the opportunity to speak to the minister of culture in this region of Spain. Afterwards, we split into 5 groups and explored Logroño through a Ghymkana.

Finally, it was time for the performance! We rehearsed in Dinámica Teatral and just before we left, we all sat in a circle to massage each other so that we would all be relaxed before the performance. Our project was very exciting in the city of Logroño as there was media personnel everywhere interviewing us and videoing us.

We began with the group on Gender and as we continued, more and more people came to watch. It was such an amazing experience to be able to share our project with the public. When we got back to the accommodation, we put on a movie and all had a sleepover together in the movie room.

Day 3/4

Day 3

What had the biggest impact on you today?

“I really liked the mid evaluation today. We all separated into our country groups and then the leaders and a representative of each group came together to discuss our evaluation. I was so impressed with how professional it was and how we were included with the responsibility” – Lorcan

“Today our performance group really worked well together. When we were talking today we found our chemistry and now we are going to create a really cool performance together.” – Jim

“ I wanted to change my performance group and I thought that it would be too much trouble but I was really impressed by how easy they let me change” – Avra

“Today I learnt how to be on stage. Like BE” - Martha

What was the funniest thing that happened today?

“Jennys reactions” – Jim

“Nothing really funny happened today. Today was a sad day” – Martha /Avra

“When Oscar fell off the seasaw” – Emma

Day 4

How do you feel?

 “Loved”- Cornelia

“Today was really emotional because of the shows and the water fight…Maybe a bit of warning next time.” - Jenny

How did it feel performing for an audience?

“Slighty underprepared but exciting. It was really interesting watching everyone else, you could really see how talented everyone is and how everything blended into the different cultures” - Jenny

“Speaking the different languages will be so cool in the street!”

“All of them were emotional in different ways, I got like several different feelings about everything. At the start I was laughing so much, and then I ended up crying so bad.” – Cornelia

“I wanted to cry, especially with the LGBTQ group.”  Eleni

“The irish and spanish really pushed the boundaries and it was cool to see people be so real with it.” – Jenny

Did anything especially good happen today?

“How many people hugged me after these things.” Cornelia

 “Yes…oh do you want me to say the good things? Everything keeps getting better, and I really loved the connection we have created. I was so moved and impressed by everyone today, I think that we are a good time.” - Eleni

 “its nice to see people coming together over the small things like dancing in the dining room”  – cornelia

 “It was really exciting to rehearse the performance with all the groups.”- Daniel

Day 2

What had the biggest impact on you today?

“Today during the refugee workshop when the guards put the refugees in the shade while they waited, but because the refugees didn’t understand why they were in the line anymore they got scared and desperate and started planning an attack. It was all because of a language barrier”- Emma

“The border crossing thing because it stripped away all my privileges (being a straight white middle-class male). When I got my privilege back by getting into the country I tried to help others.  But it was weird to think I only did that after I had gone through it myself” – Fergus

“I know it was just a game (the refugee simulation but everyone had so many ideas to start a revolution and to try and help others in and to make border crossing safer and fairer for the refugees. They actually had so many ideas to improve but yet nobody’s listening”- Bertam

“The refugee simulation because it was completely different talking about these topics as opposed to feeling them. I just realised how bad I felt just playing this game, can never be as awful and scary as how the actual people going through this feel” – Jenny

“How easy it was to change how someone feels with just a smile” – Cornelia

“In my workshop my group kick me because they are bullies and I am the victim. They have fun and I cry” – Ruben

“In my workshop we spent 3 hours talking about sexual orientation and I found out what the word intersex means”- Alfred

What was the funniest thing that happened today?

“I ate like 7 sponge cakes for lunch. But at breakfast I fell asleep on the table… I don’t think anyone noticed. But I guess now they’ll know because itll be in the blog…” - Oscar

“When Lorcan got into Karawane and then nearly fell over on the way in”- Fergus

“Actually, the funniest thing was when it started raining and hailing because the hail stones were huge and I ate one… it tasted like dirt” – Bertram

“Jim” – Jenny

“Playing foosball with jim and jenny” – Cornelia

“I was trying to make friends with Alfred but I thought he was from Ireland when he actually told me he was from an Island. I told him how I loved loads of stuff about Ireland and maybe 10 minutes later we realised we were talking about different countries” – Ruben

“Instead of saying – its ok to be gay- Beatrice said – its gay to be ok” - Alfred

Day 1

Today we played games to get to know each other, but then after lunch we went straight into the topic of hate speech. Todays blogpost was created by Frej, Magnus, Nathalie, Matteo, Adrián and Elia.

In this group more than one commented that todays topic was a heavy one but that it was worth standing still for so long because it meant that they got to hear the opinions of the youth participants from different countries in Europe. Some also mentioned that this topic brought us together as a group because despite the fact that we are all strangers, we are speaking on such a personal level.

“To open yourself up to strangers … its hard to open yourself up alone and with other people it’s harder” – Matteo (Italy)

Everyone felt that they had been very open and that they were proud to have shared. It was also discussed about the importance of having these kinds of conversations in order to get rid of tension and to improve ourselves.

During the get to know each other games, the participants also found the “potato game” to be very funny as they all laughed about how “beautiful” some of the portraits were.

“What was the funniest thing that happened today?”

“Alfred’s face in the potato game^*” – Frej

“When I saw my friends face when we realised the identity of the “X” group” – Magnus

“The games when we made physical contact… and the potato game*!” – Nathalie

“The potato game*!” – Matteo

“When we were playing foosball just 4 of us and then like 5/6 more people came and we all just played together at this little table with 10 people” – Adrián

“Seeing the weird signs all over the school that tell us not to cut children” – Elia.

*The name of this game is not the potato game however the participants have decided on this name themselves due to the resemblance of their faces to potatoes.

Preparation

From monday to wednesday this week, the Spanish team got together to prepare for the upcoming Youth Exchange! We spent most of our time discussing what Hate Speech means to us and our personal experiences with the topic. As a group we are all very excited to share what we have to say with the participants that come!

Hate Crime

Hate Crime: Violence and offences motivated by racism, xenophobia, religious intolerance, or by bias against a person’s disability, sexual orientation or gender identity.

Countries across Europe have also experienced an increased rate of hate crimes over the past several years. Between 2014 and 2015, Germany reported a 77 percent increase in hate crimes. Amnesty International reported that incidents of race-based violence are at an all-time high since World War II in Germany. Statistics collected by Germany’s Interior Ministry show that asylum shelters were attacked 1,031 times in 2015, a drastic increase from 199 attacks in 2014 and sixty-nine attacks in 2013. In Spain, the Spanish Federation of Islamic Religious Entities reported religious-based, anti-Islam attacks increased from forty-eight in 2014, to 534 in 2015. Additionally, Spain’s Interior Ministry published statistics for 2015 reporting hundreds of hate crimes based on disability, ideology, and sexual orientation.