On June 12, two groups participating in the project “What we know about tolerance” No. 2022-1-PL01-KA152-YOU-000067324 met for the first time live and started a 5-day adventure as part of joint mobility to the Vistula River.
The event began with an official welcome to the participants, the introduction of the project initiator and a reminder of the main assumptions of the project and the purpose of the visit to Wisła. At the end, the plan of activities prepared for young people from Poland and Ukraine was discussed in detail.
After the official part, several group integrating games were held to introduce a relaxed and friendly atmosphere. At the beginning, the participants were supposed to introduce themselves and show their hobbies in a non-verbal way. The most difficult part of this task was remembering each name and activity, but the participants’ reactions showed that this activity gave them a lot of fun. After introducing themselves, the participants were to line up in alphabetical order, but they were not allowed to communicate verbally with each other. The next game was written deaf phone. Youth were divided into 4 teams. Each team had the same password. The last person to know the password wrote it with their finger on the back of the person in front of them. The next person repeated the same thing until the correct password reached the first person in the row. The first team to guess the password wins. The last game was a knot made by hands. Participants, standing in a circle, had to grab the hands of two people standing opposite each other, and then try to untie the knot formed by intertwined hands without letting go of the intertwined hands. Participants had to sweat really hard to complete this task.
After the lunch break, Mrs. Magda conducted classes on interpersonal communication training as well as verbal and non-verbal speech. These activities required a lot of commitment and creativity from the young people. The participants talked about the features of a good listener and whether they have these features in everyday life. The most interesting exercise, according to most people, was the presentation by one person of the picture he received in words, and then drawing it by the other participants based on what they heard. This task allowed us to see that each of us communicates in a different way and usually presents everything from his own point of view.
At the end of the first day, a bonfire was organized, where the participants continued to integrate with each other, baked sausages and had the opportunity to listen to Polish and Ukrainian music hits.