Our first Volunteers’ Thursday meeting in the Multicultural Center was an event that we had planned out carefully. We tried to really address our experiences, but also our issues so far and to make our group really feel like a team. Each activity had a purpose in achieving this. 

We started with personal updates, inviting each person to reflect on recent experiences in Kraków. This wasn’t just about sharing; it allowed us to connect with each other and to learn more about what all of us had experienced so far. As we found out, there were many differences but also similarities in what each of us had to share. We also introduced a twist: Each person got the name of another volunteer, and during the course of the day they had to do at least one good thing for them. This, in my opinion, worked very well and also made many of us interact with some of our lesser-known peers.

We each went on to share a song in a foreign language that is near-and-dear to us and had to guess which song belonged to which volunteer. This exercise especially got a lot of positive feedback, and I heard that many others really enjoyed this insight into the others’ culture but also their personal taste. 
We also shared pictures of our experience so far and explained why they were important to us, which was also very enlightening. We then discussed the role of our volunteering jobs here. 

After a quick energizer, we talked about stereotypes: The ones we have ourselves, those we were confronted with and how to avoid and deal with them in the future. For this, we created a poster in groups, with designated roles such as ‘smart’ and ‘funny’. In the end, we showed our posters to each other and talked about why and how they were tied into our lifes here.  

As the last exercise of the day, we were shown different pictures, and each added our description ad interpretation of what was happening to them. Surprisingly, when we read them all out at the end they varied widely, and this was actually a very good representation of what can lead to intercultural problems and misunderstandings in real life. One person might see a positive thing while the other might be outraged by the same situation. 

In the end, we reflected on the past hours and voted on a future meeting with the volunteers from past years. We all wrote down our thoughts and feelings and then found our way to one small step closer to integration here: The weekly polish lesson. 

Article written by Lionel
ESC Volunteer 2024