Numbers
Those Numbers impressively illustrate how labour-intensive the year 2018 was for the Krzyżowa Foundation. Almost 30,000 participant days and 350 projects were spent in Krzyżowa: seminars, workshops, training courses and international school and extracurricular exchanges (around 4,300 participants from 31 countries around the world took part in the exchanges alone). 150 guided tours through the historical sites of Krzyżowa for almost 10,000 people. Dozens of events in surrounding schools, preschools and other educational institutions for almost 5,000 inhabitants of Lower Silesia ...
Anniversaries
2018 is a year of important anniversaries, including the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War and the regaining of the independence of Poland and many other people from Europe. We have often used the concept of freedom in this year's projects. We allowed ourselves to reflect on the value of freedom and how it should be nurtured.
The Foundation also celebrated an important anniversary. On 11 June 1998, Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek and Chancellor Helmut Kohl solemnly opened the newly renovated centre of the International Youth Meeting Centre. The memory of this event led us to witnesses of history - to participants in those events, including Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. Their memories were recorded in the form of video films and complemented the memories of the celebrations 20 years ago.
Inspirations
Krzyżowa has been drawing on the experience of others for years. But the Foundation is also increasingly sharing its own experiences. For example, our International Youth Meeting Centre (IYMC) organised a series of training courses for educators and multipliers: the seminar "Make three out of two" ("Z dwóch zrób trzy"), how to organise a trilateral school exchange, a seminar for teachers and educators using drama pedagogical and theatrical methods to promote communication in school exchanges, or "Deep Democracy", a training course in dialogue and conflict resolution.
In June 2018, a conference entitled "Educational dimension of school exchanges - opportunities and challenges for schools" ("Edukacyjny wymiar wymian szkolnych - szanse i wyzwania dla szkół") was held in Krzyżowa for school sponsors, academics and non-governmental organisations. The aim was to work together to find solutions that would make it possible to make optimum use of the exchange potential at schools.
Quality
2018 was a record year in terms of grants raised and used. This enables the Foundation not only to implement increasingly large-scale international projects, but also those intended for the local community (school innovation, international knowledge transfer, activation of the elderly and marginalised). In 2018 there were fourteen such projects - worth just under 18 million Złoty - mainly funded by the EU.
We were particularly pleased to hear that in 2018 the IYMC project "Our Common World - Global Education for Children" ("Nasz wspólny świat - edukacja globalna dzieci") received the highest score in the "Global Education 2018" competition of Polish Aid (Polska Pomoc) and the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MSZ). The three-year project provides global education training for pre-school teachers and students of educational sciences.
History
Krzyżowa lives on history and at the same time the Krzyżowa Foundation brings history to life. The memory of the legacy of resistance movements and the legacy of German-Polish reconciliation plays a significant role in our work. "Against National Socialism. The Story of Freya and Helmuth von Moltke" ("Przeciw nazizmowi. Historia Freyi i Helmutha von Moltke") is a project - carried out in partnership with the Freya von Moltke Foundation - which reached around 2,000 pupils of Polish schools. It included screenings of the film "The story of a one love - Freya" ("Geschichte einer Liebe - Freya") as well as discussions on the subject of resistance and civil society responsibility, which were conducted on the basis of the educational materials which we created.
We encourage discussions not only among young people, but also among experts. For the 16th time, we organized one of our gallion projects - "East-West European Memorial Site Meetings" ("Seminarium Wschodnio- i Zachodnioeuropejskich Miejsc Pamięci") for experts in the field of science and historical education from over ten countries. This time we thought together with them, among other things, about how to use new technologies in places of remembrance, to not lose sight of the importance of the past. For the 16th time, we organized one of our gala projects - "East-West European Memorial Site Meetings" for experts in the field of science and historical education from over ten countries.
What is being played in Krzyżowa?
Krzyżowa is not just a place for international encounters and an educational centre. In summer it is also a music enclave, where young instrumentalists (master classes for master students/Kursy mistrzowskie Uczniowie Mistrzów), guitarists (Guitar Masters Camp), dancers (Flamenco Festival) and world-famous musicians from all over the world (IV edition of the International Chamber Music Festival Krzyżowa-Music) come. Especially the festival Krzyżowa-Music impresses with its size, its verve and its artistic level. This is also confirmed by the ever-increasing number of spectators at this event. This year Krzyżowa-Music was again a guest in different parts of Lower Silesia. The concerts in Wrocław, Świdnica, Mysłakowice or Grodziszcze were very popular.
E-Krzyżowa
The work, which lasted several months, had concrete effects in May of this year: A new website was launched. It is functional, responsive, rich in multimedia and user-friendly. It is currently available in three languages.
In 2018, an interactive multimedia guide was put into operation for the exhibition "Courage and Reconciliation" ("Odwaga i pojednanie"). Thanks to an app, visitors to the exhibition now have access to additional information and content. The multimedia guide is available to all visitors of Krzyżowa - all you have to do is scan the QR code.
People
Behind all this there is a lot of work done by 66 employees of the Foundation and the International Conference Centre "Krzyżowa". The team underwent major changes in 2018. In May, Dorota Krajdocha, the Foundation's chief accountant, was appointed to the Foundation’s Management Board, replacing Bernard Skiba. Before that, in January, Anna Kudarewska took over the management of the International Youth Meeting Center (IYMC) "Krzyżowa".
In April, a new supervisory board of the Krzyżowa Foundation was elected for a three-year term, headed by Ph.D. Benedikt Schneiders and Ph.D. Agnieszka Łada.
And last but not least - in Krzyżowa there are now six new volunteers from Germany, the Ukraine and - for the first time in Krzyżowa's history - from Spain and Portugal.
[Originally published in German in the 'Annual Report 2018' of Kreisau-Initiative e.V.: https://www.kreisau.de/fileadmin/kreisau/Publikationen/KI_Jahresrundbrief_2018_klein.pdf]
