Unfortunately, xenophobia continues to occur in many places in Europe. Many Europeans are afraid to accept representatives of other nationalities in their countries. Non-formal education can be one of the tools to strengthen the values of peace, tolerance, equality, non-violence, solidarity and justice. The Czech organization Brno for you, a partner of the HEureka Generator association, decided to create a youth project, the main topic of which would be to share knowledge about human rights and promote the idea of inclusion. We were happy to become the Polish partner of the project.

During the preparatory visit, we discussed the division of responsibilities and how each partner can be actively involved in the implementation of the entire project. HEureka was represented by Aleksandra Chudek and Andrzej Smyk. One of our tasks was to prepare a video of this meeting so that future participants would get good information about the next actions.

We involved our partner school from Zamość, the Secondary School no. 4 from Zamość. In order to prepare well for the project, we conducted a local meeting with students who became members of the Polish group. We documented the meeting with the video:

The Czech organizers of the project decided that the youth exchange would take place in the Penzion Kozel in the charming town of Vrchlabi. The location of the exchange allowed the participants to admire the mountain views and have contact with beautiful Czech nature in their free time.

Our group, led by the leader, Ewa Kostrubiec (vice president of our association), set off in the early morning of October 22nd. This is the last moment before going on an educational adventure:

... and then for a few hours our group could admire such views:

As we were one of the first to arrive, we had the opportunity to get involved in the last preparations before starting the exchange.

Finally, the first group session took place and we got to know the rest of the participants from Italy, Portugal, Czech Republic and Romania. To discuss and exchange experiences on a deeper level, it is good to get to know the names of our peers first, find out what they do and where they come from. This was the first task of our emerging group.

Then we had to check how we cooperate as an international group. For this purpose, we took part in team building activities. During them, we performed tasks the success of which depended on our ability to share responsibility, compromise and communicate efficiently.

The evening parts of the youth exchange were filled with traditional games from our countries and culinary degustation. Thanks to them, we learned a lot about other European communities, we were able to introduce our 'piece of Europe' and of course we had a great time. The culinary specialities brought by the participants made us fall asleep with full bellies ;)

Moving on to the main topic of the meeting, participants first discussed what active citizenship means to them, and then how we understand the concept of 'human rights'. World cafe, theater simulation and improvisation were used as the methods.

The next day, the main topic was social inclusion. We discussed what we could do in order not to exclude members in our communities. Thanks to participation in specially prepared exercises, the participants also had the opportunity to put themselves in the situation of an excluded person.

In order to gain strength for further activities, the participants could go for a walk around the area. There were plenty of sights to photograph.

The participants were given the task to create posters and graphics that would show our common activities. An important element of the work was to create a message about the meaning of social inclusion. You can see the final results here:

Last meetings at the conference room were focused on evaluation, during which everyone expressed their opinion about participation in the exchange and had the opportunity to reflect on what they had learned. After these workshops we were celebrating the success of our project. It was time to pack.

It was definitely not the last trip of young people from the Secondary School no. 4 from Zamość under the wings of HEureka ;)