V září 2013 ochutnala Kristýna Dušková poprvé projektová dobrodružství. Po boku ji doprovázelo dalších pět členů českého týmu, mezi nimi i Lucie Křemenová a Marie Tomášková. Vyrazily do Makedonie na výměnu mládeže a kromě mezinárodních přátelství, chuti objevovat a výmluvného trička si přivezly také zamyšlení nad stereotypy a prezentaci o Be International. 

Kristýna Dušková: Let’s face your stereotypes!

There is one thing that all nations have in common. Stereotypes. They are spread all over the world and this project was great opportunity to face them. We aren’t just young, wild and free, we want to explore , we want to encourage mutual understanding between young people from different countries. We are like an European mixture of cold north, wild east and temperament south with pit of Asian culture in this project. We have different lifestyle, mentality, so it is not surprising that everybody has stereotypes about other nations.

But what can we do? Sometimes stereotypes don’t really reflect reality. For example look at the Turkish guys. There is a stereotype that they don’ t respect women rights so I was little bit scared about their behavior during EULYMPICS. But my experience with them is totally the opposite. They behave like real gentlemen, open doors for girls and they are really nice to everybody. What about others stereotypes? I also thought that Lithuanians are cold closed-minded people, but actually they were the first participants I was talking to. And there is another stereotypes that Czech people complain all the time and they’ve got grumpy faces, but they can smile and behave nice as well. I came to EULYMPICS with fears, prejudices and stereotypes, but after this youth exchange I realized a couple of them are just gone. So let’s be more international and break our stereotypes, because good people are everywhere.

 

Lucie Křemenová: United in diversity

Let’s discover Balkan countries. That was my first thought when I saw this project on Facebook. So I started to read the propositions (I really did!) of EULYMPICS and I was completely confused. Who chose this mixture of countries? I couldn’t imagine what we have in common. Imagine; cold Lithuanians from the North, passionate and hotblooded Turks, two Balkan’s countries, people that survived Dracula’s terror and us.

Our first evening was pretty good. We played some icebreaker games and introduced ourselves to each other. I really appreciated two things: the “Bora Bora” rule when someone didn’t speak in English and the fact that there was no native speaker in our community which really helped us to supress our fears cause we were all equal.

Little by little we started to realize that we have so many things in common. We somehow understood each others languages because we discovered that we have lots of similar words. Before I never realized how much did communist era bring together our nations. Even our traditions are alike for example games like dodgeball or feasting habits.

So what more can I say. Sometimes you discover that we are all united in our diversity which makes us similar human beings. And I think that humanity is the most important value at one’s life.

 

Marie Tomášková: Presenting Be International