The International Meeting of European School Clubs took place from the 22nd to the 25th of November 2007 (with the possibility to stay until the 26th in the morning, due to travel times) in Konstancin-Jeziorna, a small and calm city outside of Warsaw, in the Missionary Animation Center.

We invited 21 schools into the project (one unfortunately backed out 24 hours before the beginning of the project), with 1 teacher and 2 students for each delegation. Delegations came from different countries of Europe: we had 6 delegations from Poland, 4 from Spain, 2 from Italy, 2 from Czech Republic, 2 from Latvia, 2 from Germany, 1 from France, 1 from Slovakia and 1 from Hungary (therefore we had 63 participants. In addition, we had the honor of guesting three extra people from the Instituto Magistrale of Locri, Italy, including the director of the school). This selection of participants insured a true international spirit of the Meeting. The idea of such a meeting was to create a participative forum for school pupils, which would allow them to take part in numerous workshops and a simulation of the European Council. In order to make the Meeting as interactive as possible, we have limited lecture-type events for the benefit of workshop-type ones. Of course, we still had lectures and presentations, such as the presentation of the European Council or the presentation of the Youth in Action program.

The Polish Robert Schuman Foundation has conducted workshops on different topics. One of the most important ones was the workshop on intercultural learning, which took place on the first day. Indeed, the workshop allowed students to break the ice, get to know each other, and get to know each other’s cultures, which is an important aspect of such an international meeting. We have conducted workshops on each of the European School Club’s activities, where every delegation created a poster presenting their Club and what type of partner they are looking for.
The Polish Robert Schuman Foundation has also conducted a presentation of the European Council, which was necessary for the pupils and teachers to understand the functioning and role of the European Council before the simulation. We had two guest speakers/workshop facilitators, one which came to talk about the Youth in Action Program, one which conducted a workshop for teachers on different methods of European education in different countries.

The simulation lasted all day on the third day of the project. The previous afternoons, a few students that were trained to become multipliers came to our hotel in order to help pupils prepare the next day’s simulation, by helping them with their opening speeches, argumentation of position, and by giving a methodological and meritorical support to the participants. The next day, two students which were trained to become multipliers conducted the simulation, which focused again on the issue of Turkey’s entry into the European Union. The choice of topic was intentional, since this issue raises a great deal of concerns throughout Europe, and is very controversial, with different countries having different points of views on the question. Therefore, the simulation was a sucess, and passionate debates as well as the hard work necessary to achieve a consensus/compromise paper gave the students a true taste of the reality of difficult negotiations and compromise building.

The participants were all greatly satisfied with the meeting. Indeed, all activities were conducted in a friendly yet professional atmosphere, which underlined the fact that the projects results and long term effects can only have an echo through good interpersonal relations of the involved participants. The friendly atmosphere did not, however, undermine the serious character of the Meeting, and all the participants invested themselves to a great extent in the activities of the Meeting.

A particular interest was shown for the simulation, where most of the students prepared themselves fabulously before coming to Warsaw/Poland. The debates were on a high level, which confirmed the amount of work done beforehand, and everyone was involved in the debates independently of each individual’s level of English. The simulation contributed to bring the European Council and its role closer to the youngsters, who will become the European citizens of tomorrow. The teachers were also happy by the results of the simulation, and impressed by the level of the debates.

Concerning the teachers, they have got to know each other, and we are glad to say that, most probably, long term international partnerships will arise. Indeed, this Meeting was for them a great opportunity to meet different teachers from different parts of the continent, compare experiences and exchange, and, also thanks to the help of the workshops for that intent, create a platform of exchange and partnerships. Bilateral partnerships were already discussed during the Meeting, and much more is on the way, thanks also to the website that is under construction, and which will allow the participant schools to keep in touch and discuss common projects.