Not many of our participants had ever dreamt of going to a Polish beach (let alone in the end of November) so when news broke that our hotel was located right by the beach in Gdynia it quickly grabbed the group’s attention. Despite prior talks about diving into the ice-cold Baltic Sea at some time during the week, thankfully nobody followed through with that. Maybe because participants were too busy following through with the seminar itself, where things really happened during the week.
All participants were asked to arrive in Gdynia with an idea of a project they would want to see through within their local or national YMCA and the only condition was that it had to focus on Social Transformation in some way. The seminar was then a mix of firstly teaching methods to strengthen the project, identifying problems, communicating value and other important things to keep in mind when creating a projects and secondly participants worked hands-on on turning their ideas into solid projects and taking actions in making them happen.
The seminar also focused on peer-to-peer learning and teaching participants to support one another at the same time as they were learning from each other. The mix of experienced and less experienced leaders from very diverse parts of Europe made this a very interesting approach where many experienced that support can come in various ways from directions where you wouldn’t even have thought to look.
In order to get a deeper understanding of the concept Social Transformation we used our fantastic location and learned about how the people in Gdynia and Gdansk came together to make an impact and managed to hugely affect their society and change it to the better. We had half a day in Gdansk where we visited some of the city’s most historical places as well as the exhibition Roads to Freedom. The exhibition shows in various ways how every-day life was for people during the communism and the history of the Solidarity movement. With starting that day by watching a film about the topic before going around the historic places where all those remarkable things happend, it is safe to say people were really impacted by the day.
The seminar was organized by YMCA Europe and the YES group and facilitation was in the hands of the YES board, Y Care’s Robbie Cheyne, YE’s Juan Simoes Iglesias, Michal Szymanczak and Adam Rychlik, and WAY’s Romulo Dantas and Mikhail Guskov.
Despite a superb team of facilitators, the real stars of the seminar were its inspired and wonderful participants. Since coming back home a few days ago, my Facebook and my email inbox take turns in notifying me about some of the participants who is already elbow deep into his or her project and still running on the inspiration and energy from Gdynia to make an impact on their society. It is a privilege and an honour to belong to such an amazing group and get inspired by their enthusiasm, dedication and determination.
Seminar financed by European Youth Foundation.
