Day 06: Thesis for the future and farewell
The last full day was opened by students and teachers from Groupe Scolaire de Shyogwe (Rwanda) and the Städtische Maria-Montessori-Gesamtschule Meerbusch (Germany).
Directly after this, some visitors from the University of Bamberg arrived and guided the students through another workshop phase about “Our contribution to a better Future”. First, small groups of students prepared their ideas about the future concerning justice and peace, ecology and the integrity of creation, equality and children’s rights, our church, or “the school of our dreams”. After discussing the main aspects and collecting their ideas of how to contribute to a better future, they presented their different posters to each other. In the end, a considerable gallery of posters could be visited at the backside of the prayer room.
In the afternoon, the team of the ‘Konfi Camp’ visited us at our accommodation and offered great activities like painting gym bags, making dreamcatchers and key rings and getting henna tattoos. The bright sunshine made it even more relaxing to join some handicrafting activities outside.
Afterwards, everybody met in previously formed groups to prepare the last evening. While some were preparing welcome drinks, an amuse-gueule, the starter and the dessert, others made menu cards and decoration for the dining room. And although the room, chairs and tables were full of used cutting boards, carrot skin and paper shreds some minutes before the start of our farewell dinner, somehow everything was ready in time.
Bianca Kappelhoff and Birgit Sendler-Koschel welcomed everybody in the festive decorated hall, gave an overview of the evening and announced the welcome drink – non-alcoholic champagne with grape juice, which was served by its creators. Evi and Michel from the Evangelische Schule Neuruppin supported the special atmosphere with their acoustic music.
Then, it was the teachers’ turn to add ress the audience: Paul Nyabyenda (Rwanda) and Tom Laengner (Germany) underlined the importance of a global perspective. Their speech was followed by vegetable dishes with various dips as an amuse-gueule.
Right away, the representative of the students, Kim from the Philippines and Elvis from Rwanda, conquered the stage. With an emotional and powerful talk, they made clear that the time for young people to get active is right now and that they have the power and the obligation to work together to change the world – today and not tomorrow. The following mixed salat was badly needed to think and to discuss about these big, true words.
Mio and Anaick, the German youth delegates of the UN general assembly, took up and illustrated based on the founding and the implementation of the youth parliament that the world – and especially politics – needs courageous and lateral thinking people, who do not abandon their mission, despite numerous difficulties and challenges.
The delicious meat loaf made by ‘Kommando Verpflegung’ and the Dutch specialty “Vla” rounded off the culinary offerings of this evening. A spontaneous dance interlude by the Brazilian group which ended up as a flash mob symbolized the good atmosphere of the farewell dinner as well as of the whole week. The day closed with a common blessing under the open sky.
