Programme & action: Youth in Action programme, action 3.1.2. training course
Venue: Baku, Azerbaijan
Dates: 1-10 March 2014
Participants: Štěpánka Ošmerová, Zdenka Veselá, Jana Sonntágová, Lukáš Mišinger
Project report:
The project “Same but Different” was held in a capital of Azerbaijan: Baku. This project was focusing on minorities and intercultural dialogues with a french trainer Benoit. Participating countries: Czech republic, Malta, Moldova, Turkey and Azerbaijan of course.
Participants from the Czech Republic chose to use two airlines: AZAL (Prague – Baku) and WIZZAIR (Budapest – Baku). We had arrived at the airport in Baku early in the morning, the first participan had to wait for an hour to be picked up by a hosting organization but then everything went well and we could continue to our Student House.Other participants from Moldova, Malta and Turkey arrived in the evening of an arrival day.
During the project we managed to play a lot of ice-brakers and energizers to meet each other closely. Benoit made us feel very comfortable during those activities and we were becoming very closer among nationalities and also in intercultural groups. We were working on ERASMUS+ projects like Youth Exchange, EVS and Training courses. During our stay we went to an Azerbaijani NGO that takes care of prisoners in Azerbaijan. During this session we had a chance to talk about conditons of prisoners and about their rights. The other day a specialist from this organization visited us and gave us a speech about minorities in Azerbaijan. The sixth day we went to a UNESCO monument called Gobustan (very old painting on rocks)- it was a whole day trip and we were wery happy that organizators planned this amazing trip for us. We also visited several times the city of Baku with organizators and also alone in our free time.
Every evening we had intercultural nights where participants from each country presented themselves as a unique culture. We could have eaten a lot of interesting products and just could have seen the differences and the same things that separate/unite us all together. During last days we had been invited to a restaurant on beach where we could try to eat a camel. Speaking for the whole czech group I must admitt that we are very happy to participate in this project and we are thankful to the organizators that they treated with us in a best way they could. This project connected us with a lot of new friends around the Europe and Asia and made us feel that differences and same things can be overcome even there is a language barriere. Also some participants are interested in some new projects that can be done in a future.
Jana Sonntágová
