From 7th to 12th November, 37 students from the Jagiellonian University in Krakow, the Ivan Franko University in Lviv and the Alice-Salomon School (Vocational School for Health and Social Work) in Hannover met in Krzyżowa for an exchange. 

The entire week was dedicated to the challenging topic of "Migration and Flight". Already while getting to know each other, there was space for personal family migration or refugee stories. The tour of Krzyżowa highlighted the migration and flight stories of people who have lived (the Moltke-family) and are currently living here (ukrainian families).

The prelude to a whole series of workshops was a group work in the temporary exhibition "Taking Roots. The Western and Northern Territories. The Beginning," which focuses on the fate of the people resettled and displaced due to the border shift as a result of World War II. In a role play, participants were able to recreate a border control situation. In addition, the participants dealt in international small groups with the global situation, causes of flight and routes of flight as well as the situation in their own countries Germany, Poland and Ukraine. It was great to see how interested, respectful and empathetic the participants were in dealing with the topic and exchanging ideas between each other. The discussion of the topic was also quite emotional, especially because some participants had their own experiences and also came from a country where war is currently raging. In order to overcome the feeling of powerlessness and strengthen that of empathy, the last workshop gave participants the opportunity to think of how they can become active in their own environment to help refugees and what they themselves can contribute to their integration. 

The evenings were organized by the participants and accompanying persons in a very colorful way: they incuded sports, board games, bonfire, cinema and disco. Thank you very much for this exciting week!

Project coordination: Sarah Schumayer
Project funding: German-Polish Youth Office