HAPPY HUMAN RIGHTS DAY!

Dear Human Beings:),

While Ausrine was fighting for the animal rights in the capital  of  Lithuania Vilnius  wishing that one day their will be the same valued as human beings I went to Graziskiai  gymnasium to share the activities, witch we enjoyed  in Estonia!

Graziskiai gymnasium is situated in the southwestern part of Lithuania (not so far away from Poland). It has  a little bit more than 300 students from the age of 7 till 18. My target was the III and the IV gymnasium classes:) I got time during their English lessons, so the spoken language was forced to be English, anyway we had a little translations in Lithuanian:)

I used the same activities as we did with Liis and Martin in the gymnasium of Kuressaare  and it went pretty good. Starting with energizers, then nonverbal color game due to discrimination and after "The 4 corners game" we had lot of laughing, lot of talking, a little bit of thinking. "Do they love them self? Are mans better than women? Would they like to have a disable classmate? What if their friend has HIV positive? Should gay couples have kids?" these and many other questions were discussed through non-formal education method.

 I was surprised how free their are to share their opinion. Their said a lot of examples from their own life. It was glad to listen to them and at the same time I think that  human rights education is needed at the school, because many of youth base their opinion on the stereotypes without  any knowledge in some of the topics (HIV, homosexuals,  national minorities). Anyway! Their are really great kids and I believe their can change this world into a better place. All we need is to turn  the action on! (I'm ping pong pong and I'm jumping jumping jumping!=))


BE HAPPY! CREATE HAPPINESS!

Love You, 
Rima:)

Day 7

This morning we had to wake really early .The big day has come - today we were going to be trainers! So after the quick breakfast we gathered together to start our trip to schools: some of us went to Kuressaare Gümnaasium, the others to vocational school named Saaremaa kutsehariduskeskus. We all had 1.5 hours to facilitate workshops about human rights for the students. In Kuressaare's vocational school we all worked in groups that consisted (generally) of 15-20 boys at age of 16-17. In the beginning it was very hard to break the ice communicating with them but later it got better. 

Sadly, the youngsters didn't really want or were not able to talk in English but luckily we had Estonian in our team. After the workshops had finished we all had a bit of free time to relax and think about what had happened. Later we had a session to talk about our experiences in schools. Some of us were really happy, some of us felt really frustrated. For some groups it was very hard to make youngsters to be interested in such topic and be active in the workshops. But in the end we all agreed that it a really great experience and we believed we planted a little seed of tolerance and understanding in those students hearts. 

After a brilliant morning, we continued with "Learning Outcomes" and "Evalution". The first session was the tool which gave us the chance to summarize what we have learnt and be ready to put that on the Youth Passes.   During the evaluation everyone could state final opinion about the project's activities, the group and the trainers.

We talked about continuing cooperation and projects we could and should do together in future. We all divided in groups according to topics that we had same interest in. Then each group worked out a plan how to make a YiA project on that topic in their countries and presented it to others. We had a lot of good ideas, and surely they will not stay ideas but will also all take place in the future. :) After that we had our last study buddy sessions and filled out our Youthpasses.

In the evening we had the ceremony of receiving Youthpasses and putting a closure to our project. For the final energizer we cleaned the walls of our main work room from posters, presentations and various materials we had put there during the seminar. The most important ones were stored carefully and can be used in future whenever we wish. For the final game we all wrote something nice about each person on a sheet of white paper on the person's back for each of us to have something as a reminder of our lovely seminar during or journeys back home.

After the formal part we had the final goodbye party to say farewell to all of our wonderful participants. The week of our seminar was filled with hard work and spending amazing time together and we hope to see you all again very soon! 

Warm wishes, 

Roberto, Aušrinė and Greete

Day 6

The 29 of November! 

"Where is love there is no darkness" (Burundi proverb). 

Waking up with a first snow in Kuressare we started our day with "Wheel of Peace". We were given quiz sheet and working by our self first and after in the groups we had to fill in missing words of the proverbs and quotations. "Every heart is the other heart. Every soul is the other soul. Every face is the other face. The individual is the one illusion" (Margaurite Young). It wasn't easy task, but we did it!!!!! 

"SEE WITH YOUR MIND, HEAR WITH YOUR HEART" (Kurdish proverb).

Just before the lunch we had the quiz. We were divided in 5 groups and each group has disscussed different topics related to the situation of human rights in Estonia and prepared few questions. The quiz was quite difficult but we have learned a lot about the situation of national minorities in Estonia, about the rights of people with disabilities, which groups are discriminated the most, etc.

In the afteroon we had an activity "Sharing of resources". There were 3 rounds of 20 minutes of these resources: Human Rights Compass (by Heleri), Salto toolbox (by Ignas), 4 corners (by Balys), Post a letter (by Cat), Street Art (by Dima).

The 4-corner game is especially useful for the work with children and is based in provocative statements to which there are 4 possible answers set in the different corners: 1. I agree, 2. I don´t agree, 3. I don`t know, 4. other answer. The participants can choose their answer and stand in the selected corner and afterwards there´s a discussion held.

The idea of the „Post a letter“ exercise is in writing down the ideas, wishes that would make them come true. The possible questions are „What would you to like to be in 1 year/ 5 years? What have you learned at this seminar? How would you like the others to see you? The letter should be sent by the writer to his/her address in one year.

The Street Art (Gorilla Gardening, Flashmob, Free Hugs, Grandma Graffiti) is a great method of promoting/ demonstrating an idea which is very interesting for youngsters as it´s very original, creative and attractive.

At night we were preparing for the next day´s program - secondary school workshop on HR in the groups of 3 people.

Rima, Jan, Maša