Impressions of participants of anti-racist project

Leipzig, 03.09.- 24.09.2005

Participants of the camp in Leipzig were divided into two groups. The first group was engaged in street theatre, the second one took part in activities with schoolchildren. I found myself in the second group. We conducted some activities during the lessons according to the program we've prepared before. We were painting and playing games with children of Secondary School, sharing girls meetings in school club, learning Ukrainian dance with girls attending High School, which they finally showed during a break school. Cooked national dishes with mentally handicapped children. Presentation of the countries where both adults and children were involved had the most effect.

Wishes concerning the project: such activities are required in Ukraine especially for orphan and mentally handicapped children.

I hope local authorities and international funds will respond to such initiatives.

Olga Martynovska

The aim of my trip to Leipzig was getting experience of participation in international voluntary camp. I was interested in the subject of antiracism and proposed ways how to solve the problem. As well I wanted to feel myself as a part of the theatre troupe. There were 10 people in the theatre team and our teacher Anke. English was the working language. We spent 2 weeks in a theatre preparing our street performance. We were also discussing the topic “Strange Is Beautiful” and thinking of the ways how to show it without words. The third week was the time of our first appearance. We’ve prepared two dances, individual skits and worked out flyers in English and German. Through flyers we explained meaning of the words “strange” and “beautiful” using dictionaries. We were showing performances for two days then summed up. I contributed to the discussion of the topic of racism, developed some individual skits, and participated in conducting of our study part. I think the project was successful. In my opinion it’s not necessary to change something in the program. It wasn’t a problem for me that we were divided into two teams- working at school and theatre team. We could communicate with each other, share ideas, and take counsel during our free time, making a tour.

For the future I’ll participate in such projects with pleasure and it’s quite possible-in preparation of voluntary camps as well. It was a good school for me.

Zlata Bayrachnaya

Participation in the antiracist project in Leipzig gave me many striking experiences! Visiting the asylum seeker’s house I thought up about their hard life, what it means to be defended by your own country and to ask for asylum in foreign one… Buchenwald as the monument to horrible history, demonstrations of neo-nazi groups – it happens… However, we can make friends with a boy from a German school, to show him that’s it possible to live in peace and respect to each other. To attract attention of young people to the peculiarities of other cultures, to arouse interest to other nations.

So during the project “Strange Is Beautiful” being in a team working at school I was dancing Ukrainian dance with girls from High School, painted, played games and made pottery with schoolchildren in Leipzig. We’ve got mutual pleasure from it, positive emotions and all of us enriched own world outlook. We’ve been to Dresden, Weimar, had a look at Berlin. So our free time was building up our view of Germany, German culture, was breaking stereotypes about German people.

Darya Mironova