The civic association Expression o.z. and FACE CLUB volunteers took part this week in the SolidExpo festival, held under the auspices of IUVENTA – Slovak Youth Institute. The aim of the festival was to use personal experience to introduce secondary school and university students to the possibilities of solidarity projects and youth exchanges carried out under the youth programmes Erasmus+ and the European Solidarity Corps (ESC).
The event took the form of a living library. Young volunteers briefly turned into living books and told participants their stories. One small group shared their experiences from a youth exchange on critical thinking, which had two phases, one in Slovakia and the other in the Czech Republic. Another group presented their experience of helping to run non-formal and experiential activities such as the weekend educational programme Teen Accelerator, focused on project logic and participation, role-playing games – LARPs – or creating an escape game – an escape room. Our young volunteers became a living example to others of what such a solidarity project or youth exchange can look like and what it can bring to a young person's life.
The festival was preceded by thorough preparation. The young people collected all the memories from the activities they had taken part in or helped with and prepared a presentation, which they supplemented with photos so that their stories would be even more authentic.
We believe that taking part in SolidExpo was a great experience not only for the participants, but also for our young people, who got a taste of what it is like not to be a listener but to stand on the other side and be part of the organising team.
We thank IUVENTA for the invitation and the opportunity to present our work with young people in our region.
