FINAL REPORT International Friendship Camp 2019 Crack the Code. Activate your mind and leave your judgements behind! ABLE OF CONTENTS Arrival Day ____________________________________________ 1 Official Opening ________________________________________ 2 Tell Your Story _________________________________________ 3 Do U C What I C _______________________________________ 4 World Fair _____________________________________________ 5 Cross Cultural Competence _______________________________ 6 Special Interest Groups __________________________________ 7 Excursion to Mauthausen and Melk _________________________ 8 Heuriger ______________________________________________ 9 Morning Games and Team Building ________________________ 10 The Scary Night Rallye _________________________________ 11 Virtual Vienna _________________________________________ 12 Excursion to Vienna ____________________________________ 13 Secret Friends ________________________________________ 15 National Pub __________________________________________ 16 Peace Workshops _____________________________________ 17 Cyber Crime __________________________________________ 18 National Pub __________________________________________ 19 Conflicts in Youth Work _________________________________ 20 RC3 Humanitarian Law _________________________________ 21 National Pub __________________________________________ 22 RC3 – Diaster Relief and ERU____________________________ 23 Excursion to Loisium ___________________________________ 24 National Pub __________________________________________ 25 RC3 Spirit – History and Principles ________________________ 27 Online Communication __________________________________ 28 Costume Party ________________________________________ 29 AG Review ___________________________________________ 31 National Pub __________________________________________ 33 Festival of Nations _____________________________________ 34 Last Day _____________________________________________ 36 Interviews ____________________________________________ 38 1 ARRIVAL DAY Monday 8th July 2019 might have been just another chilled out day of summer for young people all around the world. But not for 45 Red Cross / Red Crescent volunteers from 24 nations who decided to take part in the 64th International Friendship camp of the Austrian Red Cross Youth. The camp is hosted in a small beautiful town of Langenlois, a tradition which has been upheld for 63 years. For some of us it may have been just a short trip, but for some of us it was our first time in Europe! “I was positively surprised by the good climate and the cleanness of the area. Moreover, I find people here are so caring and nice.” declared Karamage from Rwanda. During the day the participants were collected from the train station or international airport in Vienna and headed to Langenlois where they were warmly welcomed by a group Mexican Wave - the first ice breaker done! “Langenlois is not that far away from my hometown Liberec, but it really surprised me. As I have never been to Austria before, I loved the vineyards, I thought the area would be more mountainous” said Bára from the Czech Republic. The next get-to-know each other and the opening parcours lasted until dinner. Among other activities we created a string net connecting all of us as a symbol of the friendships that would be created during the fortnight. We all began to realise that we were sure to have a great two weeks ahead of us. After settling down and refreshing ourselves we were ready for the first evening socialising. Some of us had our first taste of Almdudler, a typical Austrian soft drink, but the Macarena was the certainty on the programme for almost every one of us… 2 OFFICIAL OPENING The afternoon of the second day the official camp opening took place in the town hall of Langenlois. Those were our first steps out of the campsite in Austria. On our way from the gardening school to the town hall we passed by some beautiful historical buildings, every windowsill occupied by flowerbeds. We crossed some of the locals, seeing how the actual Austrian life looks like. After enjoying the splendid atmosphere, we gathered in the entrance yard of the hall to take the first official photographs and also to observe everyone’s beautiful national costumes! We got the warmest welcome from the town hall delegation. Firstly, we watched an introductory video of what Langenlois offers and then the representatives talked about our upcoming international Red Cross experience and also our exploring of Austria. We, the participants, also got the chance to briefly introduce ourselves and our origin countries and give some symbolic gifts to the town hall delegation. In return we experienced some local wine and Käseweckerl-bread tasting while talking to the town hall and Austrian RC representatives. Moreover, the whole event took place in a beautiful historical hall, so our first impressions of Austria couldn't have been better! Some of us continued to the Kornplatz square to visit a traditional Austrian bakery or just strolled along the Loisbach river. “I really enjoyed the whole afternoon. My colleague Max wore the traditional costume vyshyvanka and we presented then a clay statue as a present to the Langenlois town hall. The vice- mayor Mr. Groiß left such a good impression on us” revealed Anton from the Ukraine. 3 TELL YOUR STORY As one of the initial games to “break the ice” and to get to know each other, we played a simple game called Tell your story. In the yard, even with some of the Teamers, we created two circles, the inner one facing the outer one and answered various questions such as “what food could you never give up?”, “why did you join Red Cross / Red Crescent?” or “what surprised you about Austria so far?”. The outer circle moved to the left and right side so that we can talk to as many participants as possible. It was a very enriching activity because we heard many interesting life stories. 4 DO U C WHAT I C On the day after arrival participants were challenged by an activity: “Do you see what I see” based on their knowledge about other cultures. There were posters with delegation flags laid out in the sports hall, ready to face all the participants’ facts and myths about their home countries. Randomly created groups discussed ideas they had about foreign cultures. When a member of a delegation was at the poster of their country, they had to stay quiet. For me was this the hardest part, looking at the rest of my team writing incorrect facts about my country. The following day Dr. Erik Malchow led a workshop, where the posters from the “Do you see what I see" were presented by each delegation, who had to choose two assumptions that are right and two that are wrong and discuss them in front of everyone. After, in discussions we admitted that we were prepared for much worse prejudices about our countries. There were a few exceptions of course. Some of us were shocked by the misspelling our state names e.g. Austria is not Australia, Slovakia is not the same as Slovenia. There were also little mistakes in geographical positioning. Other interesting highlights, which were corrected during workshop: Leprechauns in Ireland are not real. Baklava is not typical just for Bulgaria, but also for all ancient Ottoman states. Camels do not live in Cyprus. Weather in Rwanda is not same as in the Sahara, they have seasons. Taekwondo was developed in Korea, not in Thailand. Crocodiles and kangaroos do not live in Austria. Bubble tea is from Taiwan, not Malaysia. 5 WORLD FAIR On Tuesday, 9th July, we also had a session called ‘’World Fair’’. Each delegation had enough time to prepare two posters – one describing their country and one to teach about their National Red Cross or Red Crescent Society. At some point during the preparation time some of us went to the Delegation leaders meeting and others stayed to make sure that the posters would turn out extra special. After all the posters were ready, they were hung on the walls of the sports hall by the teamers for everyone to see and each delegation had two minutes to present theirs in front of everyone. The posters were full of interesting information and colourful pictures and drawings that gave us more insight to the culture and traditions in each country or showed us the activities of the National Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. After each delegation presented their work, we were given time to go and exchange some information and also talk to each other some more if we wanted to know more about some of the countries and National Societies. With this session we not only got closer but also opened the discussion about the differences and similarities between our countries 6 CROSS CULTURAL COMPETENCE On 10th July our day started with a workshop that was led by Dr. Erik Malchow - a former teamer. He talked about what culture is, where it originates from and how we can work together in order to overcome cultural differences. We also discussed cultural shock, body language and stereotypes and what role they play in getting to know other cultures. To have a better understanding of the topic, we also were divided into small groups and after we heard a short story, we had to rate the people from it according to their behaviour. Then we used the posters from the “Do you see what I see" workshop and each delegation had to choose two assumptions that are right and two that are wrong about their country and discuss them in front of everyone. At the end, thanks to Erik, we all knew how to crack the code by using the internet to get to know people from different cultures and become more accepting of the cultural differences. 7 SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS Here are our four Special Interest Groups: Creative Arts, Dance, FON (Festival of Nations) Preparation, and Media. The four groups worked throughout the 2 weeks to prepare for the FON which will be explained later in this report. The Dance group were prepared a special dance for the FON. We were taught a lot of new steps, we were working with our bodies and our emotions to give our best to each other and to LL19. The Creative Arts group started off by making flags for every nation.