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Working with Older Volunteers in Manual Intergenerational Projects<br />
clarified. From the first evening onward,<br />
for instance, the German and Czech group<br />
and some French participants met in the<br />
lounge in the evenings to sit down and<br />
have a chat. Some of the German participants<br />
had discussed about a possible guest<br />
present beforehand and decided to bring a<br />
“typical German” beer keg for the evenings<br />
together. Initially, the majority of French<br />
participants did not show up for these informal<br />
get-togethers, which the other participants<br />
attributed to tiredness or disinclination.<br />
On the third day it became known<br />
that several French participants did not<br />
join the meetings, because they felt uninvited<br />
and thought the beer was only meant<br />
for the German participants. They had<br />
waited for an explicit invitation. As soon<br />
as the German participants heard of this,<br />
they seized the initiative and invited them,<br />
which resulted in the French also taking<br />
part in these informal get-togethers on the<br />
remaining evenings. The constructive overcoming<br />
of such difficulties surely contributes<br />
to intercultural learning.<br />
In general, 90 % of the interviewed participants<br />
stated that the exchanges let them<br />
gain new experiences in the cooperation<br />
with participants from other countries.<br />
The experience of having organised a meeting on an international<br />
level has increased both the self-confidence as<br />
well as the reputation of our senior citizens. I have noticed<br />
in my own environment that the senior citizens of KLAS<br />
are more and more regarded as cooperation partners and<br />
not as a group seeking help or pleasure. Moreover, and<br />
this is important for the development of our community,<br />
communication with the local authorities led to the elderly<br />
being regarded as cooperation and consulting partners<br />
by them.<br />
Michaela Bernardová, Director of the Family Centre<br />
Pexeso, Prague/Zraslav<br />
Conclusion<br />
The seminars and the overall high satisfaction<br />
of participants demonstrate the capacity<br />
of the concept to unite people from<br />
different European cultures and different<br />
generations in a common communicationintensive<br />
learning context by applying<br />
methods of manual work and intergenerational<br />
dialogue. However, the implementation<br />
also showed that meta-communication<br />
exercises, thus intercultural training, raised<br />
the awareness to interpret experiences of<br />
difference, which are usually experienced as<br />
“strangely” necessary during the everyday<br />
seminar contact. Based on this experience a<br />
further development of exchange seminars<br />
is urgently recommended.<br />
Exchange Oberhausen, construction of a beachvolleyball<br />
court<br />
Final Report 39