Page 12: Summer University 2003
From SI Exco News
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Summer University Poland 2003
This event, which lasted one week, took well over a year to prepare. Before choosing the site, we visited 30 holiday centres, and we were lucky to find a beautifully situated spot in northeast Poland with a little hotel and a campsite. Then came what seemed a never-ending brainstorming about the programme and what we wanted in both the main event and the youth camp. Soon we were able to define our roles as the organisers. I did the registration, something I had feared (how can one cope with all the e-mails and letters?) but found most enjoyable. I'll never forget the feeling of overwhelming joy on seeing the people I had been exchanging e-mails with (just as the feeling of great relief on the last day - we made it!) In June, with the growing number of the people wanting to come, we decided to expand, hired all possible places near by, and set up a youth camp of army tents for people over 14 whose parents were participants. It seems to have been a good idea because the young quite enjoyed it. With over 200 participants from 20 countries, we occasionally lost control (chaos at meal times, problems with phone cards etc.) but everybody was understanding and almost nobody complained. The people came with too many offers for workshops and activities to include in the programme. Somebody asked me to write some helpful hints for the future organisers of Summer Universities. They'll probably be different for different countries but this is what we advise. 1. Get in touch with the people who have organised it before. We did it and it proved very helpful. 2. Get an enthusiastic and co-operating team and divide the duties clearly. 3. Find a capable person to look after the finances. The number of activities and things we were able to offer were possible thanks to the flexibility of our treasurer. 4. Offer sports and fun activities. This attracts young people and families with children. 5. You can always count on the workshops brought by the participants. 6. We hope that Youth Camps will be a part of every Summer University.
- Ewa Dzierzawska, National Secretary of Poland
A look at the youth camp from its organisers
- Participants: As could be expected, the majority were from Poland. Some of them were actively involved in the preparations or had specific tasks e.g. sailing lessons. The rest were mostly from Europe, and there were two young men from India.
- Camp activities: We didn’t have a lot of duties other then general help, e.g. registration on arrival, organizing some activities for children and teenagers, helping a young participant in a wheelchair, Marianna..
Our goal for the youth camp was mainly to spend time together as a group, make friends and hopefully become or continue to be involved in Servas in the future. The participants were informed about and encouraged to participate in the meeting in Barcelona. In fact, several of them had been to Thailand and/or Barenthal. There were a lot of evenings spent together by the fire or at the waterfront, socializing and discussing, and one separate trip - Olsztyn by night. As a youth camp we prepared a musical for the closing ceremony. Written by our Czech participant, Honza, it was a love story about relationships and friendships started and kept thanks to Servas. After the camp, eight of us went on a 3-day canoeing trip on the Krutynia River, possibly the most beautiful canoeing route in Poland. It was really attractive and we wish more people had gone. Together with the local European Club for youth, we organized a ‘happening’ to promote recycling - a fairly new idea in the area. There was a lot of laughter while we were working on and presenting short scenes describing paper, glass and plastic, each group dressed in identical T-shirts in colours corresponding to rubbish containers. We painted posters with funny slogans, which were put up all over the town before our performance. On the day of the happening, we arrived in town in the afternoon and marched around shouting invitations in every language spoken at the Summer University. The event took place in the town’s main square, there was music and a lot of contests, and of course our performance, which was even filmed by the local TV. Everybody who took part in the happening was really happy about it; those who decided against it missed out on a lot of fun.
- Conclusions: A separate youth camp, we think it is worth continuing because it is both a support for the main event (Summer University) and an opportunity for young Servas to meet, work and play together. It is probably best if some kind of sponsoring can be offered, which was not the case in Poland, a comparatively cheap country, but would probably be essential in e.g. Western Europe. We feel it is important to balance duties with fun and opportunities to become closer friends, we hope such camps inspire young people to get involved in Servas activities and become its future.
- Anna Zakrzewska, Ula Kondraciuk
A look at the youth camp from its participants
The Youth Camp members were accommodated in spacious army tents in the middle of the forest. It was a great opportunity to get in touch with the nature, especially Polish mosquitoes. But even they had problems attempting to suck our blood, as we were always on the run. The many activities were only possible if enough of us managed to gather in one place at the same time, which was very difficult due to the vast areas of Perkoz camp and extreme mobility of all the members. Evenings, after light supper, were devoted to resting and talking around bonfire or on the pier.
- Marcin Ostaszewski
Our stay at Perkoz wasn’t just trips, sailing and sunbathing. If somebody asked me what it really WAS, I’d have to say: the people. The people from the tent right next to yours, those you sang with at the campfire or the ones that learned Ukrainian dances with you. But also, certainly, the young people from Olsztynek. The happening on recycling organized by the youth-campers with the boys and girls from Olsztynek, with all the positive energy it released, remains for me one of the most vivid memories of the whole camp. Just a few glimpses: 20-people, a multi-national group walking the streets of a hot, sleepy town at midday, announcing through the loudspeaker the upcoming event, first in Polish and English, then in German, then, what the hell, in French, Czech, Hindi and whatever came to our minds, with Olsztynek children spontaneously joining in and old ladies staring at us suspiciously, or just curiously, from behind the fences of their gardens… The same group, a few hours later, wearing blue, yellow and green t-shirts (the colours of the recycling bins; glass, paper etc.) this time accompanied by the excited 6-year-olds in fancy costumes made out of old newspapers and tape (the effects of one of the many ecologically-oriented contests for kids that day), carelessly dancing around the town’s main square to a Manu Chao album and chanting: re-cy-cle your rub-bish!!!
- Zosia Dzierzawska
A Servas teenager speaks out
I’m convinced that the Servas meeting in Olsztynek was something completely different for the youth than it was for adults. Most of the time we just enjoyed ourselves swimming in the lake and playing beach-volleyball, but we could also go sailing or rent a canoe or a pedalo. There was also an interesting programme of integration with the young people of Olsztynek to encourage people to sort and recycle rubbish. Apart from this event, we did a number of different things; we had an opportunity to see a nearby city, called Olsztyn, and at an open-air museum, you could see old Polish architecture and learn about the traditional way of living in Poland. The teenagers didn’t only have a different programme from adults; we also stayed somewhere else and enjoyed a lot of freedom as we slept in scout-tents on a small campsite in the woodland.
- Basia Wasilewska
All the ‘little helpers’...
An event like Servas Summer University needs a group of dedicated ‘little helpers’. Their role -as my role was - is different from that of the core group of organisers. The philosophy of the little helpers can be summarised: do all you are asked and do it as well as you can in a creative and friendly way.
In practical terms, it meant that I was prepared to do almost everything the people responsible for our event asked of me, be it early in the morning or late in the night. One day the request was to supervise the boarding of the buses and collect the fare for a trip to Olsztyn. An unexpected result of my activities was being asked to find the owner of $100 bill found on the bus floor by a group of boys from Germany and France.
Another day, I was requested to support a couple whose car had been stolen (but later found) in their contacts with police, a garage and insurers. Sometimes my tasks were really tough. Acting as interpreter for a large group in an open-air museum, I had to cover the vast area in an hour in order to reach the famous shrine of Gietrzwald on schedule…There, I had to clarify, in a diplomatic way, that we were the ones who wanted to listen to a concert, not the ones to give it as they had thought and announced to their parishioners...
After reading all this I think that you should not be surprised that my tribute goes to the ‘little helpers’ of all the Servas events, our Summer University in Poland included. Do not forget that we need them!
- Mirel Wasilewski
