With Media Literacy towards Cultural Awareness and Tolerance

Into the wild

Today we had the opportunity to explore the forest near Petralia Sottana. The idea was to invite us to volunteering. It was actually kind of simulation and the task was  clean up an amphitheatre. We all had different impressions and emotions about this work. Here you have two of them:

"I really enjoyed doing this task. Cleaning the forest wasn't that hard and we had a big group of amazing volunteers doing the task some or less doing the cleaning ;) the influence of the other volunteers by singing, dancing, talking and joking made it even more enjoyable for me.  The task was completed quickly by the group and it gave me a good feeling".

"I am doing volunteering for a long time now but this job was giving me a different feeling. It is maybe because of the company. We know each other for a couple of days and we had to cooperate so it was a hard job. Most of us were doing a hard work for the whole time, some of them not, but we felt amazing after the job was made. We were happy for each other and that we could achieve a goal. It was hard because we did not do it for ourselves but for a town we do not even now. And the best acomplishement was that the municipality posted photos of us and thanked us for the job. This was all we needed, so we went home tired but fulfilled".

The other part of the day went fast. We started with discussing the volunteering.  We shared our opinions and experiences. After that we had a workshop on stereotypes.

Orange game! Soooo, do you think that oranges are the same? Well, they are not. So as people. Now we know that not all Latvians have six toes, hungarians are not (that much) alcoholics and so much more.. But the main point is we broke stereotypes and prejudices. And it is a good start for us and for the future. I recommend everyone to meet people and get to know them because it is just so much fun! :)

The last task was about sandwiches.. Actually, it is like a hamburger sandwich combo and it is about communication, especially the non-violent one. It is easy, if you want to say somebody that he or she did it wrong, the way of express yourself should be like a sandwich; positive, improve, positive.

So keep up the positivity guys!  Life is life.

Aide, Eszter