From the 7th to the 17th of July, our NGO participated in the youth exchange ” Ready for Solidarity” held in Slovenia.
The project brought together participants from 6 different countries, namely: Slovenia, Italy, Poland, Serbia, Israel, and Morocco, to explore our different cultural and religious roots and backgrounds, learn and research topics like inclusion, social, cultural, and religious differences, tolerance, solidarity… By using different approaches and methods, including games, photography, video, posters, and other ways of expression and learning while having fun.

In this blog, we will dive into a youth exchange program whose main goal was to teach people how to coexist together, despite the cultural and religious differences, a program that used a very interesting learning method, learning by having fun, a method that proved its efficiency since all participants enjoyed the learning experience and the program in general.

The first day of the project as every other project, the morning session was a chance for all participants to get to know each other and break the ice through elaborated games and energizers, which allowed the participants to easily communicate with each other and create bonds.
Later on, the afternoon session introduced the participants to the project program, by giving them an overview of the week plan.
And to end a great first day, some team-building games on solidarity and sharing were programmed to give the official start to the project.

On the second day, the participants embraced solidarity with an exhilarating team-building activity and learned about Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, and the 2016 European Green Capital.
In the afternoon, the participants were introduced to Green Dex, a co2 emissions calculating app, that give you an idea of how many trees you should plant to compensate for your co2 emissions, which they used to calculate co2 emissions by their flight.
The day concluded with the vibrant Italian Cultural Night, unveiling Italy’s rich heritage.

The third day was an opportunity for participants to embark on a captivating field visit to Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, where they visited in group the Islamic Religio-Cultural Center, Hare Krishna Temple, and Sts. Cyril and Methodius Church, and had a free afternoon to explore the city at leisure.
The day culminated in the enthralling Serbian Cultural Night, a deep dive into Serbia’s cultural wonders.

The fourth day’s main activity was a team building one, the participants worked in teams to create activities for the three days to come, related to the project subjects, namely solidarity, sustainability, and religion.
The participants had a free afternoon, and some of them used it to discover the city of Brezice and its beautiful nature.
The day it was ended with the remarkable Slovenian cultural night, which was an opportunity to know more about Slovenia and its culture.

The fifth-day activities started with a role-playing game, the participants took on the roles of their characters and started to answer some questions and take a step forward, then shared and discussed their answers with the others.
In the afternoon, the participants were divided into two groups and started an exciting debate, about if is it ok to teach religion at school, the participants had different opinions with strong arguments, which made this debate more interesting.
The day concluded with the cultural night everyone had been waiting for, the Moroccans, which was an opportunity to share our rich culture.