European Youth Empowerment festival - Kaunas 26th -27th October 2022
In Kaunas we hosted the last festival with a topic of "Enlargement of the EU". This event took 2 days, where the first one was dedicated to ice-breakers, debate, quiz and presentations and the 2nd day was an actual LARP even with a discussion and evaluation afterwards.
40 international students and teachers took part in the event representing Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Finland, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina with local participants from Kaunas Technological University and other young people..
The first day was dedicated to creating a creative and friendly atmosphere by doing some ice-breakers. Then we had a quiz about EU, which showed us we dont know as much as we think we do. Next we asked our participants to think about the connections and relationships between their countries and other EU countries. They later presented these relationship maps together with the history of their country connected to the joining of EU, the benefits and possibly the predictions for the future.
The LARP itself was themed as a meeting of all the "big players" of the EU on a summit where they vote for or against enlargement of the EU. We had heads of member states, journalists, protesters - everything that belongs to the summit as we know it from a TV. The countries - namely Great Britain, Turkey, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Serbia each introduced their arguments for joining the EU, the summit participants asked some questions and then we voted pro or against.
This gave the young people some idea about how these summits work, how it is not always that easy to decide and voting cannot be done only by heart but there are many variables to consider with a decision as this one. We discussed the details or enlargement versus keeping the status quo of things and it was great to see that the young generation in huge part shares the EU values and wants to be part of the European space.
40 international students and teachers took part in the event representing Lithuania, Italy, Greece, Finland, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina with local participants from Kaunas Technological University and other young people..
The first day was dedicated to creating a creative and friendly atmosphere by doing some ice-breakers. Then we had a quiz about EU, which showed us we dont know as much as we think we do. Next we asked our participants to think about the connections and relationships between their countries and other EU countries. They later presented these relationship maps together with the history of their country connected to the joining of EU, the benefits and possibly the predictions for the future.
The LARP itself was themed as a meeting of all the "big players" of the EU on a summit where they vote for or against enlargement of the EU. We had heads of member states, journalists, protesters - everything that belongs to the summit as we know it from a TV. The countries - namely Great Britain, Turkey, North Macedonia, Ukraine and Serbia each introduced their arguments for joining the EU, the summit participants asked some questions and then we voted pro or against.
This gave the young people some idea about how these summits work, how it is not always that easy to decide and voting cannot be done only by heart but there are many variables to consider with a decision as this one. We discussed the details or enlargement versus keeping the status quo of things and it was great to see that the young generation in huge part shares the EU values and wants to be part of the European space.
Here you can see a longer documentary of the LARP
Shorter version
