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.