This exchange brought together participants from the Slavic countries: Poland, the Czech Republic and Croatia. We agreed and we still believe that the awareness of knowledge about the culture and traditions of the Slavs is very low. In schools, not much time is devoted to learning about our Slavic roots, and in our opinion it is not only very interesting, but also helps us to understand better where did, for example, our traditions and holidays come from. Thanks to the exchange, we wanted to show that our history is not boring, and goes much further than to the beginning of the formation of our statehood.
During the exchange, the activities carried out by the participants every day during the meetings contributed to the development of their competences in the thematic scope of the project. The workshop sessions developed and polished the skills, knowledge and attitudes of these young people. We started the exchange with the integration and introduction component, and then we conducted a workshop on effective work with historical sources. Each subsequent day of activities was devoted to a different topic within the culture and history of the Slavs:
The participants were divided into six international groups so that each of them was responsible for one thematic day. The groups were responsible for preparing two activities during “their” day: they started with a scientific and historical introduction, during which people from each country presented what the life of the Slavs looked like in this aspect on the territories of their present countries. Thanks to this, we could clearly notice our cultural similarities and differences. Then the group carried out a group task prepared by them: it was, for example, cooking using only ingredients known to the Slavs back then, composing a song from self-made instruments and words common to all nationalities, etc. We spent the last day of the exchange in Grodzisk Owidz, where we were in the museum of Slavic culture and visited a reconstructed settlement.
The main tool for sharing the experiences gained and the results achieved was the creation of a series of films, each of which corresponded to the subject of a specific day of the exchange. We wanted them to document our perspective on the past and present in the context of a given topic, and show how much of an impact on our lives today is made by events from thousands of years ago. All project participants were involved in creating the films – both at the stage of creating its concept, as well as recording, editing and promoting it on the Internet. The films not only draw attention to the history of the Slavs, but above all are a source documenting the impact of non-formal education and international projects on young people; we hope they will inspire our audience.