Day 1 ~ Finding the way

… by emőke

Though we are in the end of our first day, so far most of the experiences are positive. We started the program at 9 o’clock in Fót. First we had a meeting and introduction held by the director and the staff members of the children care centre and right after we had a first meeting and welcome of the youths. We passed a ball around and we told our names, the country we come from and our age. In the beginning passing the language barrier was a little difficult, but soon we found out that some of them have some basic knowledge of English language so we managed to have a translator. Most of the youths are boys and they come from Afghanistan, but there were also some from Kosovo and usually there arrive from Syria, Pakistan or some African countries. As they found out that we are available to listen and stay with them, they came up with their problems, they were asking to get back their money and phones taken away from them.
After we were playing with a ball outside for a long time. Many youth joined the game during when we were play. We were also inviting all of them to join. It was very visible how their attitude changed. They trusted us, and helped us. Later on, we sat down in a circle and started singing. It was a kind of an exchange of cultures. First we sang a hungarian traditional song, and they started to sing us their own traditional songs. They were very open to share something from their culture. Also the lunchtime was a very positive experience for both sides. We ate lunch with them, and unfortunately they were very surprised, but also happy and grateful. They expressed they hospitality towards us, they served us with water and shared with us some of their snacks. .i. It was very important that we spent time listening to them, and playing with them. We still have to work on building a stronger relationship based on trust, and have some more team building activities. Also it is important to share about each-others culture, and as we are from 4 different European cultures, it is a positive experience for them to see how we work and share time together.
In the coming days we will renovate, clean and design, possibly together with these youth, a new stable location for intercultural relation development and activity center.