After an exciting week of study visits all over Asia, volunteers and staff members from 15 countries gathered together in New Delhi, India to start with the first steps of the new trimester program called PEACE Program.
On the first day we started with some team building exercises to get to know each other better since we had a week full of work just ahead of us. The first lunch was quite an experience. Every dish is something new. And some of the Indian food and spices were heating up some people of the group. We started to love Naan – a lot.
After the lunch break, we all could share our experiences made during the different study visits. It was interesting to see and hear from each other and to hear how different the knowledge about Global Citizenship Education (GCE) in the different countries, which we visited is. We learned a lot from each other’s visits and got some inspiration for the coming days.
During the next days, we worked on understanding the concept of GCE, how it can be implemented in the new trimester program which we are developing right now. And how we will train our volunteers for this new program. What do we need for marketing. And how will this program be different from all the great programs we already have within the AFS network.
We also had a cultural tour around New Delhi on the third day. The first stop – Lotus Temple. It’s something different from each other’s culture to take off shoes and fall in the line to pray inside the Lotus Temple. After that, we went to Humayon’s Tomb — the red Taj Mahal, the India Gate, and finally went shopping in Delhi’s Haat. We also experienced a bit of India by dancing Bollywood dance and having henna tattoo.
It was great to work in an Asian-European group to get first hand realities since every partner has its own little challenges to implement the new program. But at the end we all left India with a good feeling about the new PEACE program. Now the real work begins and we need your help to make the PEACE program to become a successful program. We will keep you updated about the next steps. Stay tuned.
Now it is time to thank AFS India for hosting this meeting. It was wonderful to be in your great country – thank you so much for having us.
