Colorful activities for peace

Susan Schellknecht, head of the exchange program and project manager of the summer camp, is enthusiastic: "It's so nice to see how quickly the young people deal with the topic and find their own individual way of doing it." The young people from Poland, North Macedonia, Moldova, Switzerland, Serbia, Croatia and Turkey lived together in the houses of the Pestalozzi Children's Village.

The workshops were a central part of the two-week summer camp. At "There is no planet B" the young people learned what the difference between weather and climate is and how each individual person can make a contribution against climate change. The young people in the "Media in your daily life" workshop took a critical look at social media, created radio programs and summarized their experiences in their own camp blog on powerup.ch. In the blog they reported that it is difficult to get through the children's village dry during a thunderstorm. Or they showed insights into the Food Bazar, where all countries presented traditional dishes and their culture.

Negative feelings adorn a huge white wall in big black letters. A young woman is standing in front of it, crossing out part of it with bright paint and rephrasing it with positive feelings. In the "Break the silence" workshop, the young people not only dealt with their feelings, but also how they can identify and tackle problems in their home country and develop solutions for them. Doing activism for your own community: What that means, how you can become active and what risks this entails in each country was worked out in the workshop "Love & the power of the people". Yoga mats are spread out in the classroom of the «Inner peace / outer revolution» workshop. The mats are framed with different messages about one's own identity and children's rights. In the first week of this workshop, the young people primarily dealt with themselves and their own identity. In the second week, they learned how to apply what they had learned to their environment.

Another highlight of the summer camp were the «Community initiated workshops». Here the young people themselves were given the opportunity to offer their own workshop, depending on their talent and interest. In order to inspire the other participants and get them interested in new hobbies. At the end of the summer camp, all young people drew up action plans on the relevant topics, which they then implemented in their home countries. The results will be presented in a joint radio broadcast.

In addition to the workshops, the young people benefited from a varied supporting program. This includes trips to Zurich, to the Rhine Falls or to a show dairy. During the week, the leisure team at the Pestalozzi Children's Village offered an entertaining program with many creative and sports activities, a disco and the aforementioned food bazaar.