From the 20th to the 24th of March, we had the great pleasure of offering workshops at the Aline Mayrisch high school during the 5th grade project week on the theme of “Who am I and what is my role in society?” This week allowed students to reflect on their place in the world and how they can contribute to building a better future. The mornings began with a moment of meditation and the formulation of intentions for the day, around a beautiful bouquet of painted cardboard flowers, created by some of the students in the class to represent the values and attitudes they all chose to reflect during the week.

1. Intentions for the day written each morning; 2. The qualities reflected by the young people and redrawn by one of the students.

The workshops focused on themes of reflection related to the general question: empathy, altruism, privilege and the role of choices in building a better world. The arts, at the heart of the sessions, allow young people to convey messages, illustrate complex and profound ideas, go beyond verbal language and integrate ideas in depth while creating beauty. The games, which are central to all the workshops, are catalysts for joy, interaction and human bonds that enable one to overcome shyness and fear of the other and to put into practice certain concepts such as cooperation, listening, empathy, patience and generosity.

1-3. Moments of group reflection and presentation of the reflections in the “EMPATHY” workshop; 4-9. The arts at work throughout the week: theatre, drawing, painting, dance, music, singing; 10-12. Youth playing various cooperative games.

Complementary activities were also offered to help the youth develop their skills, such as video editing workshops in collaboration with Youth4Planet, capoeira with the Capoeira team Luxembourg and artistic meditation with Julia Ruhmann and her Creative mind flow workshop, all of which were highly appreciated by the students. These workshops allowed the students to discover new abilities and to connect with their own creativity, always around the messages they felt were important: racism, justice, discrimination, listening and caring. Afterwards, meeting times were set up so that the pupils could have moments of reflection and sharing with other classes: for example, the “Mercy’s Blessing” workshop was held together with a class from Fieldgen private school that had also attended UF workshops a few weeks earlier.

1-5. Video workshop, Capoeira and artistic meditation; 6-7. The two classes from Aline Mayrisch and Fieldgen high schools reflecting together on the award-winning short film “Mercy’s Blessing”.

Another meeting was organised on Wednesday afternoon around the sustainable development goals that the pupils had chosen in advance, related to hunger and poverty, health, environment, inequality, peace and partnership, education and decent work and growth. To find out how these goals can be achieved in practice, meetings were organised with Luxembourg structures involved in the achievement of these goals and projects were carried out with two classes at the school. Divided into 4 groups, the pupils were invited to put their energy at the service of these structures and classes.

1. The “Peace and partnership” group prepared and organised games with the young people of the “classe d’accueil” of the high school, after reflecting on what the objectives of peace and partnership can mean and how they can be concretely put into action with young people newly arrived in Luxembourg. Listening, trust, open-mindedness and inclusiveness were therefore at the heart of the games they had planned.

2. The “Health, Environment, Poverty and Zero Hunger” group went to support members of a community garden in Dippach to restore the garden and prepare the seeds. They were able to talk to the garden members and Karine Paris from CELL to understand the environmental, health and food self-sufficiency issues involved in creating the garden.

3. The “Decent Work and Growth” group held a workshop in the CARITAS Let’z refashion shop dedicated to recycling and up-cycling clothes and fabrics. The students learned how to recycle fabric and how to make small wipes with sewing machines. They also visited the fashion shop DEVÏ which supports women in India in recycling Indian fabrics to make modern fashion items.

4. The “Education” group prepared and facilitated tutoring and team-building activities for a “preparatory class”, around the theme: “being united”.

1. The students from the two classes discuss together to find at least 5 common points; 2-3. Students helping members of the Dippach Community Garden; 4-6. Students making small wipes with sewing machines; 7-8. Students lead a discussion on what unity means and propose cooperation games.

In addition to the workshops, a presentation evening was organised for the teachers and parents of the class to share the ideas and artistic productions made during the first days. The show gave the students an opportunity to strengthen their friendships and encourage their team spirit. They were challenged to go beyond their limits, to build solidarity among themselves and to strengthen their ability to formulate complex ideas clearly and concisely. The talents of each student were also put to good use in the evening and in the messages they wanted to convey. A memorable evening!

Dance, music, theatre and slam at the presentation evening for the headmistress, teachers and parents.

In short, Aline Mayrisch’s project week was an opportunity for the students of the 5ème C5 to become aware of their own place in society and the impact they can have on the world around them. On the one hand, the workshops allowed the students to reflect on their own abilities and behaviour by understanding the importance of empathy, altruism and the choices we can make every day to contribute to building a better world, on the other hand, they had very concrete opportunities to put them into practice: the meeting with the Fieldgen class and the service activities in the field. The week was a great success, not only for the students but also for their teachers and parents, allowing them to discover their talents and abilities and to perceive the power of unity when they strengthen their team spirit and act together for the betterment of their environment.

Learnings for Unity Foundation? Yes, and there are many! Whether it is at the level of the content of the programme, to reduce the number of activities planned to deepen specific themes, the importance of varying the nature of the activities between arts, sports and individual and collective exchanges; at the level of the animation: to include the students as much as possible in the projects and to benefit from the presence of young interns to lead the workshops to their peers, and above all the importance of trust, patience and kindness in this process of individual and collective transformation, which takes place not only in the young people but also in all the people around them. We are experiencing once again that it is by encouraging and living every day with active listening, caring, cooperation and open-mindedness that a real understanding of these issues can be achieved.

We would like to thank Elisa and Liam, students from the 8th grade of Aline Mayrisch high school, for doing their internship with Unity Foundation that week. They devoted their time and energy to learning our workshops and putting them into practice during the project week. We would also like to thank Mrs. Chaine, director of Aline Mayrisch high school, for her support and participation in the evening organised by the youngsters, as well as the teachers Mrs. Myriam Wagner and Mrs. Yass Khabirpour for having allowed our intervention. We thank Youth4Planet, Julia Ruhmann and the Capoeira Team Luxembourg asbl for their artistic interventions, Karine Paris from the CELL and the shops Lët’s Refashion of Caritas and DEVÏ for having welcomed the students in their structures!