2013 – European Youth Exchange “Make the change come true – Live your life sustainable”, Saalburg (Bleilochtalsperre), GERMANY, 20-27th August 2013

At the beautiful Bleichlochtalsperre, being Germany‘s biggest water reservoir, almost 40 young people from Armenia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany, Spain and Ukraine met for one week to exchange their ideas about healthy lifestyles and experiences with sustainability in diferent areas like energy, transport etc.

After breaking the ice, getting to know each other better and some intensive team-building activities with a Slackline, we were presenting our NGO’s to each other by using pantomime.

The participants had the chance to become an active part of this wonderful week, by implementing their own ideas in the so called ‘Creative Open Space’ teams. Each country was presenting the situation of young people and how they threat their environment, their nature and themselves. We found out about many similiarities but also huge diferences. For example we all do have intersting approaches of sharing things in our environment, like cars, flats, food etc.

www.couchsurfing.org www.blablacar.org

To get an impression about movements that are active in our field we were watching the movie ‘In Transition 1.0.’ which is showing the ideas and the dissemination of the ‘Tranistion Movement’ (see http://www.transitionnetwork.org).

Besides discussion about this topics we made many outdoor-games and a lot of outdoor activities. One day we spent on bikes and the group was cycling to Schleiz. In total we managed to ride 28km, some even more. Just imagine, there we were people who went the first time in their lifes on bikes- and they did a great job.

Working on the topic of social justice the participants made a blindfoldingactivity. They discovered the area through the leadership skills of other participants. Through the ‘Step forward’ game we tackled the topic discrimination and being diferent in our societies.

At this day the group had another exciting experience on the water of the Bleichlochtalsperre by going canoing. There were 12 canoes paddeling on the big lake, discovering the area by trying not to fall into the water. 🙂

The highlight for everybody during this week was the huge amount of adrenalin in our bodies while climbing in the forrest- on up to 16m high. There were six parcours waiting for us with diferent tasks to overcome. At the same day we
became creative in many diferent handicraft work by trying to use mostly natural materials like wood, stones etc. Due to a huge amount of rain we had to cancel the planned night walk and we spend the evening by playing the best game ever-animal-ping-pong.

The last day we were using to reflect on our common time, the things we learned from the group and the things we want to take home and to change in our communities. After this intensive week everybody went home with one eye crying, and one eye laughing.

Thanks to all of the participants and to the Youth Center in Saalburg for this wonderful experience!

Juliane Heinz