A taste of Europe in Poland

As part of the YPA Multipliers project in Kawkowo, Poland, we were invited to facilitate a session with children from the local school aged between 4 and 14.

During our 2 hour preparation on the night before, we decided as a small group to plan what our main focus should be.

We were also told that it was likely that the children would have most likely rarely have left Kawkowo, let alone Poland, and most likely never have travelled to another country.

As a group of four, consisting of 2 Italians, 1 Spanish and 1 UK participant, we decided that our main outcome should be to show the children parts of our cultures and our lives, in order to inspire and plant seeds of curiosity of foreign cultures and the other countries around Europe.

We had planned a variety of activities, and were even worried that it would not be enough content to fill a 90 minute session. However the reality was that we barely had enough time to implement half of what we had previously planned.

We each showed photos of our lives back home, our travels, friends and family.

The children at first were extremely shy, but as the session went on they began to open up, to laugh and enjoy learning about our lives and became more confident asking questions.

Our strengths as a team was coping with the fact that our powerpoint presentation did not work so we improvised well and facilitated the session with enthusiastic energy. One improvement could have been to manage the time of the exercises a little better.

We finished the session allowing them to pick questions written on pieces of paper and to ask whoever they wanted from the facilitators.

We also were curious to know about what they enjoyed in life and what they dream of becoming when they are older. It was perhaps no surprise that they expressed a wish to travel to Italy and Spain in the future, and their dream jobs ranged from being a doctor, to someone who cuts the stones for cemetery graveyards.

The session finished with group photos, high fives and what seemed like a competition of which child who collect the most of our signatures.

One key learning point to take away is that the style and energy you bring to these educational activities are just as important as the content of the activities.

We as a group felt nourished and inspired by being around these children and we hope we get the chance to do it again in the future.

Until next time Kawkowo.