Gimnazjum z Oddziałami Dwujęzycznymi nr 83 im. Konstancji Markiewicz w Warszawie (17 January 2011)

Yesterday for the first time, I visited a gimnazjum in Warsaw, the Gimnazjum z Oddziałami Dwujęzycznymi nr 83 im. Konstancji Markiewicz. It is a bilingual gimnazjum, where the students must learn two foreign languages among English, French, German and Italian. 

I was asked to present France for a class of students who study French and have 6 hours of French lessons every week. This was special for me because for the first time also, I had to speak to the students in French and believe it or not, but today it is harder for me to speak in French than in English. We use English all the time here and it has become natural to speak in this language, whereas I don't use French very often since I arrived in Poland. 

So perhaps my French was a little strange but anyway, I was very impressed by the level of the students, their French was really good... Most of them had already been in France and knew a lot about French culture so I don't know if I taught them anything new but at least I hope that they enjoyed it as much as I did !

" Write for Rights", Amnesty International's letter writing Marathon in Piątkowisko (10-13 December 2010)

Each year hundreds of thousands of people mark International Human Rights Day on 10 December by taking part in Write for Rights, Amnesty International’s letter-writing marathon. 

People from all over the world write letters to demand that the rights of individuals are respected, protected and fulfilled. In doing so, they show solidarity with those suffering human rights abuses and try to bring about real changes to people’s lives.

From Belgium to Benin and Switzerland to South Korea, Amnesty International events took  place from 4-14 December 2010, to mark International Human Rights Day. 

Also in Poland, many actions were organized all over the country, bringing people together to Write for Rights by sending letters, emails, faxes, SMS messages and tweets, and signing petitions.

On this occasion, we were invited to participate in a Writing Letters Marathon organized by the European School Club of the Gimnazjum im. A. Mickiewicza in Piątkowisko, close to Pabianice.

The Marathon ran from 12 a.m. on the 10^th of December until 7 a.m. the next morning. The goal was to write as many letters as possible and the school succeeded, since about 2500 letters were written, so we broke last year’s record of 1800.  It was really great for us to be part of such an important event even though we wrote in Polish, so the two of us only managed to write 25 letters each! We spent the night at the school sleeping –very little - on mattresses in a classroom, which was quite an interesting experience too! 

The next day, we presented our countries for 5 different classes, so about 120 students aged between 12 and 16 years old. 

 This was also a great cultural experience for us and allowed us to know more about the Polish culture. Indeed, we were hosted by the family of two students of the gymnazium and got to discover the traditional Polish lifestyle: delicious – and too much - Polish food, Polish hospitality and nice talks by the chimney by a snowy afternoon… 

 

Kałuszyn i Nowe Groszki (9 December 2010)

 On December 9, Sophie (another French EVS volunteer) and I (Louise) took the bus to Kałuszyn, a small city not very far from Warsaw. First we went to the public library of Kałuszyn, where we presented our country - France - in front of about 20 children aged 10-12. We were very surprised that one of the boys knew almost all af the French football clubs! Then we were driven to the primary school of Nowe Groszki, a small village close to Kałuszyn, in the middle of nowhere! We presented our country again for   about 25 children aged 6-12. 

“Społeczne Gimnazjum Jezykowe” in Lębork (1-3 December 2010)

From 1 December to 3 December of 2010 we visited the “Społeczne Gimnazjum Jezykowe” in Lębork, a small city in the North of Poland, not very far from the sea. But very far from Warsaw, because it took us 8 hours of train to get there! Fortunately Polish trains are always favorable for interesting encounters!

During these three days, we presented our countries – Armenia and France – and conducted workshops on the topic of children’s rights for 132 students aged from 13 to 15 years old. 

 

We tried to make presentations and workshops interactive in order to allow the students to share their experiences and knowledge about Polish culture, traditions and language with us, as well as to learn about France, Armenia and children’s rights. They were especially surprised to discover the preeminent role of Poland in the development of children’s rights: indeed, they learned that Janusz Korczak was the first man to write about children’s rights in the 1920’s and that Poland was the country which requested the United Nations to work on an international Convention on children’s rights.  

 

We also enjoyed spending time in Lębork in spite of the cold weather, we met incredibly nice people and we would like to thank them again for their warm welcoming we hope to see you again soon! 

Who are we and what are we doing in Poland?

Ofelya, Armenian girl from Vanadzor. Louise, French girl from Paris. What do we have in common and what are we doing in Poland? We get these questions quite often and here is the answer:  

Both of us are staying in Warsaw for 9 months, from October 2010 to July 2011, working as EVS volunteers for the Polish Robert Schuman Foundation.  

But wait, what is EVS?

EVS, or European Voluntary Service, is part of the Youth in Action Programme of the European Commission. It is open to all young people aged 18 to 30 and allows them to participate in voluntary activities in a foreign country, for a duration of 2 to 12 months.

As EVS volunteers, we are not allowed to get financial remuneration for our work, but EVS has to be free for us. It means that our housing, our transport card, our food, our plane tickets to fly to Poland and back are paid for. On top of that, we get pocket money every month for leisure. Of course, we didn’t know Polish before to come to Poland, so we also have free Polish classes and try really hard to learn Polish! But until now we have been a little desperate... Polish is not the easiest language in the world!

Our project

As volunteers of the Schuman Foundation, we work at the office and help with different everyday tasks. But an important part of our project, the one which we are going to write about on this blog, is to travel to different schools (primary schools, gimazjums or liceums) everywhere across Poland to meet with the students. The schools invite us and ask us to present about various subjects, mostly our countries, France and Armenia. We also organize workshops about human rights, the rights of the child, the European Union or any other subjects, depending on what the schools ask for or what we think might be interesting. We teach the children about these subjects and about our countries, and in exchange they teach us about Polish culture, Polish language, etc. So it’s always a very rewarding experience, we hope for both sides!

We will try to post regularly on our wild adventures across Poland and our meetings with Polish students…