European Youth Empowerment festival - Jajce 29th & 30th of August 2022
In Jajce, Bosnia and Hercegovina, we hosted the 4th festival with a first day based on debates and discussion and our 2nd day with a LARP (Live Action Role Play). The main idea and topic of this LARP was "Migration" as a general concept. We wanted to discuss with the youth participants the forms of migration, reasons for migration (to or from a country) and the morality of welcoming or being against migrants.
At this event almost 40 international young people from Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Finland, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina came to have fun, learn, discuss the topic of migration and find new friends.
The festival is divided into two days. On the first day, we had some ice breaking activities, then a short quiz followed by presentations of participating countries and their historical and current stand on migration and migrant situation. We realized that positive or negative migration is a topic that touches us all, no matter from where we are. We had a passionate discussion about possible solutions to migration and each team presented their ideas in front of the whole group.
The LARP was created with a huge part thanks to Lenne from Studio Lionheart. The script was simple: we are all travelers on a train that is filled with locals and migrants. Every participant had a mission that they had to fulfill during the LARP. Some locals had to be anti-migrant opinionated, some on the other hand had to be a migrant supporters. We wanted to put the participants into a little uncomfortable situation and often encouraged them to express opinions or act in opposite to what their own believes and values are. The final result was very positive, even though the whole activity was quite emotionally exhausting. It was not easy to be mean or to feel unwelcomed and suspicious. As a conclusion, participants got to feel at least partly on their own how does it feel to be in the skin of the opposite character.
At this event almost 40 international young people from Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Finland, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina came to have fun, learn, discuss the topic of migration and find new friends.
The festival is divided into two days. On the first day, we had some ice breaking activities, then a short quiz followed by presentations of participating countries and their historical and current stand on migration and migrant situation. We realized that positive or negative migration is a topic that touches us all, no matter from where we are. We had a passionate discussion about possible solutions to migration and each team presented their ideas in front of the whole group.
The LARP was created with a huge part thanks to Lenne from Studio Lionheart. The script was simple: we are all travelers on a train that is filled with locals and migrants. Every participant had a mission that they had to fulfill during the LARP. Some locals had to be anti-migrant opinionated, some on the other hand had to be a migrant supporters. We wanted to put the participants into a little uncomfortable situation and often encouraged them to express opinions or act in opposite to what their own believes and values are. The final result was very positive, even though the whole activity was quite emotionally exhausting. It was not easy to be mean or to feel unwelcomed and suspicious. As a conclusion, participants got to feel at least partly on their own how does it feel to be in the skin of the opposite character.
Here you can see a longer documentary of the event
Shorter version
