JEF Belgium

Human  Rights day started terrible: I have finally caught the flu that has been going around in the group as well. It was incredibly difficult to get up on time to visit the Catalan Parliament. Since there wasn’t any time for breakfast either, I felt really weak all day long…  But being strenghtened by the tought that everybody was feeling terrible at this point, I got my act together and joined the group to visit the Catalan Parliament.

The building was so impressive: beautiful assembly halls, impressive corridors, the engravings on the ceilings and the wonderfull details that you could find everywhere you looked where really worth the suffering. On top of that, an MP explained the Catalan political situation to us in more detail. It helped me understand the  internal problems of Spain much better.

The visit to the parlament was follewed by something very rare: Free time! We could just stroll around the beautiful Barcelona, As long as we made shure to be  back in time for lunch!

After lunch we discussed human rights: Is it a universal concept? What is the EU’s role in promoting or enforcing these rights? Are there also duties connected to this concept…? We spent the entire evening discussing these and other, broader matters. I think it was very usefull to be able to talk about this concept so freely.

The planning for the evening was pretty straight forward: a night out in Barcelona. We had some trouble finding a nice place that could have us all at first, but after going to a bar we ended up in a pretty cool club! Unfortunately our Maltese friends had to leave that evening. So while we were partying, they had to say goodbye to go and catch their flight. It was all really sad,.. Hopefully, we’ll see each other again some day… I would really like that anyway!

Now, the awesome party went on until 5 o ‘clock, but the pictures aren’t fit for publication I’m afraid :-)

You’ll have to come see for yourself some day how it is done in JEF!

Okay, one picture…

Thanks for caring,

Peter

Okay, this is only going to be a short one, because I rrrrrrrreally need some sleep.

We started of with a simulation game: Each of us got a post-it on taped to his forehead, without knowing what was written on it. We then had to interact with each other (without words) like we would in real life. Based on those interactions, we had to guess what identity we had unknowingly assumed.

It was immediately clear to me that I had to be something REALLY bad, ‘cause everyone ran away from me all of the time. (It turned out that I was a murderer, so I guess it makes sense that prostitute Michel turned me down). Troughout this game, we could experience a little bit what prejudice and stereotypes are about.

The rest of the day was filled with some really interesting discussions about stereotypes: what are they, are they always bad, can they be avoided or are they part of everyday life?

Peter invited one of his catalan friends for a creative workshop. The workshop was really cool. At first I was pretty sceptical (I think most of us were) but it was so great to open up… The concept was called “theatre of the oppressed”. We had to interact with each other without using words, and had to let our bodies do the talking. At first, everybody was pretty shy and closed. But after 10 minutes, we were dancing and jumping, crawling and hypnotising and using “body language” like we never did before. It was really cool to see how different people feel with the concept. We had to lose all socially accepted frameworks of communication and create an entirely new one. It really got us closer together as a group.

We finished our day with a quiz, because we had to be fresh for the next morning: leave at 08.15 for a visit to the catalan parlement!

The quiz was pretty cool, but after the quiz we decided that a little party would not hurt anybody…So we simply continued the international evening of the night before with a dance contest (Wich I lost – badly) on our room. Spontanious parties are usually the best, and so was this one! It was great!

Sleep tight! I know I will!

Peter