The coordinator of the project implemented under the Visegrad Fund was our Czech partner, the Brno for You association. We were pleased to accept the offer of being a Polish partner and creating an interesting development opportunity for our youth aged 12-15.

The five-day meeting in the Czech Republic was focused on strengthening the competences of young participants so that they could become active citizens in their communities more efficiently and planning a small local event that they were to conduct after returning from the meeting to Poland.

As the project was co-financed by the International Visegrad Fund, the international partnership, apart from Brno for you and our Heureka, involved organizations from the other two Visegrad countries: Green Foundation from Slovakia and Jane Goodall Intézet from Hungary.

The organizers of the project prepared everything near Ostrava in the Beskid Mountains, in a picturesque resort called Dům svatého Josefa.

We engaged our local partner, the Bilingual Primary School SMART SCHOOL from Zamość. In order to prepare well for participation, a meeting was held at our partner school at the beginning of June. The meeting was attended by the participants of the trip - qualified 5th and 6th grade students. During the meeting, the most important organizational and formal things as well as the obligations of the Polish group were discussed. The students also learned about the requirements and expectations of the organizers. There was time to ask questions, clarify doubts and help in preparing the required documents. The meeting was hosted by: Dorota Paszko and Monika Siemieńczuk (our contact teacher at SMART SCHOOL).

Well, the day of departure has come. After the trip and preliminary formalities related to accommodation, the most important thing was to get rid of the stress of staying in a new place and integrate with their peers. For this purpose, the first integration sessions were held, during which young people broke the ice, learned the names of the rest of the members of the forming group and took part in teambuilding activities.

Then everyone focused on the activities related to the main topic of the meeting: How to plan a project or how to recognize the needs of the local community. The workshops always ended with summaries. Every evening was filled with meetings in reflection groups, during which it was possible to talk about what the participants had learned and whether everything was working as it should be.

The group's task was also to prepare a promotional campaign, which then took place in the town of Rožnov.

Finally, the participants agreed on the details of their local events, which were to take place soon in Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, and evaluated the entire meeting. After completing all the works, the group celebrated success by having barvecue party.

To increase the visibility of the activities, the participants also prepared a project blog and a promotional video presenting the project. You can find the blog here:

and YouTube video here: