.
Last August, Orfü (Hungary) brought together 35 young people from Bulgaria, Italy, Poland, Romania, Hungary and Spain, to give us the opportunity to reflect about human rights in both individual and collective aspects of contemporary society.
We talked about how media, use tools to share information, but in some cases these tools can turn into dangerous weapons – often used by the government to take control over lower classes or young people who accept things without critically reflecting on them.
From the variety of activities that we took part of, the two that I would like to point out are:
Discussions about Human Rights, stereotypes and judgments, homophobia in the media, where the importance of the opinion of each individual is significant for building a new, current day perspective
We made an amazing performance during the last day of our project by the lake of Orfu, to represent different minorities and the importance of equality, with the slogan “We all are humans”. At first, the acting and choreography seemed to be a challenge for most of the participants, but later it turned out to be really successful.
By the way, there were memorable moments in the kitchen when we had to organize our team to prepare the food for the whole group, sometimes with a little bit of stress, under pressure but it was always a collaborative and productive work process.
“Someone said that each day you can learn something new, but in the course of our project, the days were running by so fast, that it often seemed impossible to disconnect, think, learn and get to know each other. For me, this youth exchange experience, brought me the possibility to go beyond my comfort zone, to learn about different cultures, personalities and opinions. It was an intensive 10 days project which broke my stereotypes, increased my empathy, and that’s the type of learning that I was looking for .I’ve learned that it’s only up to you if you want to learn something new or to stay in your same summer routine, and I realised that I really appreciate this new perspective of life.” Marti
“It was a challenge for me to go out there without knowing anybody, where the common language was English and the topic was related to up-to-date issues, but I don’t regret it. At the beginning everything seemed complicated and sometimes you would think that you are not ready for that, but when you give it a try, everything changes. Just enjoy the moment, because everything goes so fast.This Youth exchange experience gave me the opportunity to know myself better out of my comfort zone, develop my English skills and appreciate different points of view, that I could not reflect on before. I would like to invite everyone to have this type of experience, where you can grow your values, get to know different people from other cultures…it was a challenge with a great success” Mariona
“Living together makes the people come together for a few intense days. Your participation, the way that you involve in this type of project opens your mind to different cultures. I’ve had the opportunity to experience how different people can come together at a certain point which is now really common these days. The different activities bring me the possibility to develop my confidence, creativity, tolerance and flexibility with different opinions in the debates. That was another challenge the result of which I am so grateful for. Experience like that leaves a perfect trace in my life.” Gonzalo