Something wonderful with people you never knew

For me the peace conference in Pristina, organised by YMCA Europe on 09/09/2014 was the first conference i ever attended. Before going there I was skeptical and thought it would a boring thing... just five days to spend somewhere else.

Well I was wrong… Those five days were the best of it’s kind and I enjoyed them very much!
The first day we were the first ones to arrive at Hotel Pristina and as the host country it was our duty and pleasure to host other YMCA groups from other Balkan countries (YMCA England and Ireland joined us too ). You could see by our facilitators and organizers faces, their confidence and joy... this was the first indicator to me that its going to be a good and productive peace conference!

Participants at the "Bridges for the future conference"


Everyday there was a different country who explained their conflicts and what are they doing to find a solution to peace, everybody were involved by asking and answering questions and doing lots of ‘icebreakers’ which helped us remain active all the time.

We visited some cultural places in Pristina, and one day we also went to Prizren and Ferizaj to see places that promoted peace among different religions, everybody was impressed.

Vising the mosque and church in Ferizaj


The best part of this conference was group project, we all were divided into 6 digital home groups and had to make a digital project for promoting peace. We each had our roles in the groups and as a production team we made it happen. Every group were very creative and chose different ways to promote peace, every project in the end was very good and it was a great feeling knowing that you did something wonderful with people that you never knew... and now you share something with them!

Everyone there was open minded, and in peace with themselves so nobody judged each other by their appearance or the country they came from, it was fun having conversations and playing games/ doing activities with each other.


I can’t say all the good things that happened, but I want to mention and say thank you to Marius Pop from YMCA Europe who organised  this along with a group of facilitators from some of the countries. Also thank you to Andy, Darryn, and Craig from YMCA Ireland and from YMCA World Samuel and Carrie who were all great and inspired us youth people, they are the ones who promote peace everyday by their actions!

Ardit and Carrie in Prizren


Ardit

Comments

  1. Marius Pop22 September 2014 at 14:40

    Thank you Ardit for being part of this experience!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Andy23 September 2014 at 09:26

    Brilliant post Ardit, you guys were great hosts! Loved spending time with you all in Gjakova!

    ReplyDelete

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