01 August 2014

Story: On top of the cultural tide

GEYC took part in the project "Wall on the high tide", an European exchange held between 16th and 24th July 2014, in Gdansk, Poland involving young people from Poland, Turkey and Romania.

The main objective of this project was to debate upon the differences between cultures, to find similarities and also to raise awareness regarding the importance of cultural diversity .



The project involved three teams composed of eight participants and one coordinator from every country. The activities were based on non-formal education and aimed to improve the participants knowledge about foreign cultures. Every nationality had their opportunity to show to the other participants why their country is worth visiting. This thing happened in the cultural nights. The participants prepared traditional food, drink, listen to traditional music and taught the others traditional dances.


Let's dance "Brasoveanca"!
The Romanian night started the event series. The "papanași", a Romanian desert, was the star of the night because it was so desired by the guests, especially by Turkish people. All the participants danced "brașoveanca" and “hora“, the Romanian traditional dances.
The Polish people showed to the guests a Polish wedding and they taught the other participants the "polonez", their traditional dance.
The "baklava", a traditional Turkish desert, the "ayran", a traditional Turkish drink and the beautiful belly dancers could not miss from the Turkish cultural night. In the participants opinions these cultural nights were not only very funny and enjoying, but also very interesting because all of them felt like they had been visiting Romania, Poland and Turkey in time of the cultural nights presentations. 
They also  learned to appreciate more their own culture. "I love my country and I am really excited because I have the opportunity to show to the others participants that the Romanians are not only thieves, as they say, but also smart and creative", said a Romanian participant.

Another creative and interesting game which made the participants to get to know Gdansk,  and enjoy the beautiful places of this town was a task which supposed to make a travel guide for dead creatures. This game helped the participants get to know each other.  They were divided in groups of six or seven persons from every country. In this way they could find more things about their mates and their culture.

"This exchange was not only a cheaper and very enjoying holiday, but also a very stimulating experience for me because I had to talk in English every time and when somebody talked in his national language, we used the expression "Bora Bora" to remind him that the other people could not understand him. I was one of the persons afraid of another language and for this reason I refused the exchanges. Now, I am so motivated to be involved in other projects like this one. It`s a pity to be a student and not benefit of this kind of advantages. I strongly recommend everyone to take part in an European exchange project. It is a very beautiful experience. I also met amazing people and I fell in love with their cultures.  We became very good friends and we have decided to write a project which will take place in Romania, in order to see them again and for proving that all we told them about Romania is true. Unfortunately, there were also some disadvantages because the schedule was not strictly followed and we were a little confused, but we liked so much each other that this thing was not a problem for us", said a Romanian participant.
GEYC has made some new friends

Seaside, fun, culture, new friends and GEYC

In Polish we say "Kocham GEYC!"- "I like GEYC!"

This is the Polish team
That is what they knew about Romania when we started the Romanian cultural night

"Polonez"- the traditional Polish dance