From 9th to 14th of August, Semper Avanti was conducting a training about the Human Rights, called “World at our home”, and three EVS volunteers from MLC were participants.
The mainly idea was not only to develop the participant’s knowledge about that subject, but also to train them about how to make their own Human Rights workshops.
The training was located in a mountain hotel in Nowy Gierałtów, just the perfect landscape to disconnect from the routine and be focus in the topic during one week.
During the first day the participants started with building team activities, to prepare themselves to work together during the rest of the days, and with the idea to know each other better.
The afternoon was reserved for a walk in the mountains, crossing the Czech border, with a talk about the situation of the Human Rights inside the participant’s countries.
One of the most interesting activities during the second day was one called “World Bank”, which was great to improve the empathy and understanding of the global economics functioning. In the game the group was split in six groups. They were asked to make some shapes (circles, rectangles, etc.), and try to sell them on the International Bank.
There were six tables for the six teams, each one representing one country. They were ordered in the way where the first tables had the most advanced tools (scissors, glue, good quality paper), and the last tables did not have tools, even if they do it was very basic, and more bad materials.
By the end of the game they discovered that the real functioning system of the World Bank does not start from equal situations, and the related actors –in real life, countries themselves- cannot have equal results. Also it was interesting to observe the participants inside their game role. The behavior of the participants which were impersonating the first world countries, resulted with a familiarity which is very close with daily stereotypes in the ordinary life: the people from the powerful tables –countries- were sure that they had won in the game because the “poorest” groups were lazy.
Other greatest moments in the training, happened in the third day: the participants played the short version of the “UN Model”. To sum up, each person was representing one country in a United Nations meeting, to discuss and vote, whether to make a military intervention or not in Syria. For that, the participants were supposed to find information about the nations they were representing, to make more realistic roles.
The fourth day had very funny and interesting activities, from Drama and Forum theater activities to Frisbee match or theory of creating workshops with the Kolb’s cycle of learning.
The training “World at our home” ended with a cultural day to discover the beautiful city of Wrocław.
In conclusion, the training was a very great and intensive experience. The trainers did a hard job and the participants took the consequent benefits, which are reflected in their Youth Pass :)
One of the most interesting activities during the second day was one called “World Bank”, which was great to improve the empathy and understanding of the global economics functioning. In the game the group was split in six groups. They were asked to make some shapes (circles, rectangles, etc.), and try to sell them on the International Bank.
There were six tables for the six teams, each one representing one country. They were ordered in the way where the first tables had the most advanced tools (scissors, glue, good quality paper), and the last tables did not have tools, even if they do it was very basic, and more bad materials.
By the end of the game they discovered that the real functioning system of the World Bank does not start from equal situations, and the related actors –in real life, countries themselves- cannot have equal results. Also it was interesting to observe the participants inside their game role. The behavior of the participants which were impersonating the first world countries, resulted with a familiarity which is very close with daily stereotypes in the ordinary life: the people from the powerful tables –countries- were sure that they had won in the game because the “poorest” groups were lazy.
Other greatest moments in the training, happened in the third day: the participants played the short version of the “UN Model”. To sum up, each person was representing one country in a United Nations meeting, to discuss and vote, whether to make a military intervention or not in Syria. For that, the participants were supposed to find information about the nations they were representing, to make more realistic roles.
The fourth day had very funny and interesting activities, from Drama and Forum theater activities to Frisbee match or theory of creating workshops with the Kolb’s cycle of learning.
The level of the activities during those days was advanced, and no one expected to have a last activity as interesting as the previous. But it happened in the fifth day, with the refugee’s simulation. During the whole morning the participants were in groups, in the role of families who are being refugees. First they started with a normal life, but soon the troubles were coming. They were forced to abandon their homes, and they were exposed to many challenges: to find the rest of the family who was lost inside the chaos, to prepare the bags and suits and to leave their home, to hide, to try to cross the national border where the people was speaking a strange language, and to start a new life in the next country. The game was so emotional for lots of participants, who got deeply in to the game role.
The training “World at our home” ended with a cultural day to discover the beautiful city of Wrocław.
In conclusion, the training was a very great and intensive experience. The trainers did a hard job and the participants took the consequent benefits, which are reflected in their Youth Pass :)
