Ukrainian Vibes in Sandkrug – An intercultural experience at the ASA-seminars

Last week we, the team of Ukrainian Vibes, had a rest from our work on the project. Instead, we went to a secluded, green idyll in a small village called Sandkrug, which is close to Oldenburg. However inconspicuous the whole place sounds, the event which took place there wasn’t inconspicuous at all. At Evangelische Gasthäuser Sandkrug e.V. ASA participants from different projects around the globe came together for their second seminar week, this time in person. The focus was put on intercultural exchange and learning skills relevant to development projects in order to make progress with one’s own project.

Ukrainian Vibes is not only a project by the managing NGOs (Democracy International, Change Communication and National Ecological Centre of Ukraine) but also forms part of the ASA-programme, a programme created and funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and administered through the agency ENGAGEMENT GLOBAL. By making Ukrainian Vibes part of the ASA-programme, these three NGOs made sure that our team would join an international alliance doing more than just creating projects all around the world and providing young people with opportunities to get involved in development cooperation. ASA also means a space to exchange on a bigger scale, as well as sharing strategic ideas and a platform to discuss global issues.

In total, two seminars took place during our time as Ukrainian Vibes team so far.The ASA-seminars started in April before the beginning of the project work with a one-week online get-together and ended in May with the onsite week in, this year, Sandkrug. And to us this alliance meeting was a success: With the support of former ASA-participants, the seminars enabled an exchange between the many participants from Germany and the partner countries. In total, we’ve been around 100 German and non-German participants at the online sessions and around 60 participants at the offline session.

Our tutorial group at work, collecting some ideas for activities in the next days. In the background one of the houses we stayed at in Sandkrug.

Our tutorial group at the ASA-Seminars during a Yoga-session: Glenn, Katharina, Ana, Nele, Anna, Olha, Natalia and Angélica (Starting at the front till the back).

So we were in the middle of Sandkrug’s forest and discussed, formulated strategies and attended workshops together with projects in Colombia, Benin, Ghana, Cuba and many other countries. The schedule of the week was tight and the topics kept us busy at all times. The workshop on white saviorism and racism for example was not an easy subject to talk about. However, it is a topic of utmost importance in an intercultural context.

Besides the discussion of these concepts, the tutorials were also an important part of the seminar days. Each tutorial consisted of two projects and a former ASA-participant acting as the tutor. They were designed to create a safe space for our exchange. In our tutorial group, we came together with a project group setting out to Colombia in five weeks. The team currently works on reducing the spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes, especially in rural areas. They’re checking the success of the implementation of a paint, which contains agents that are supposed to keep the mosquitoes at bay. While at a first glance our projects don’t have much to do with each other, together with our tutor Ana, we worked out methods for optimal cooperation, exchanged our impressions and simply had fun together. We grew together as a team and will support each other in the future.

The seminar week was informative and in any case much more enjoyable in person than online, yet the programme and its topics were very intense making the week go by faster than expected. In the end, the little moments in between have brought us and all the 60 participants on the onsite-week together. After days full of learning and exchange, the dance lessons we gave each other brought some relaxation and the evenings around the campfire allowed us to have informal discussions with each other. In addition to that, the workshops run by the ASA-participants on the last day gave each of us the opportunity to share our skills and learn from others. The meal breaks, especially the cake break, created a basis we could look forward to together. Each of the participants was interesting in their own way and brought so much energy and knowledge with them that we can only hope to maintain these contacts for a long time.

Written by Katharina Bews.

Translated into Ukrainian by Olha Mordiuk and into German by Katharina Bews.

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