News

• Let “To-Gather” to go on by Burcu AKKAYA

  11.10.2010 23:37

  Burcu AKKAYA

  Let “To-Gather” to go on

  Latvia is called “Letonya” in Turkish. So if I divide this word to 3 pieces “let-on ya” comes out like puzzle pieces. So for me this reminds let To-Gather to go on after the perfect presentations and performances in Jurmala Festival which took place at Jurmala State Gymnasium. (Jurmala is a small city 25 km west of the capital city Riga, easily reachable by a nostalgic train.)

  That was the creative Conference of To-Gather Multiple Choice Identity. It was organised at a school building called Jurmala Gymnasium. When we entered the school there were many students and teachers around in a school reality. The echoed music of To-Gather in the corridors was giving the wish, energy, spirit and the encouragement to all these people to be a part of Project To-Gather.

  There was a very kind welcoming ceremony with the flowers and the flags of the participant countries. It was an honour to be welcomed in this amazing atmosphere and happiness to see all these people waiting very excited for the festival.

  First the government representatives from local and national ministry made speeches and the festival officially started.

  Sandra, Sandis and Signe had worked hard to lead students to be on the stage all day with a high quality. And the students were like a colourfull rainbow when dancing and acting in front of butterflies. They were touching our skin and eyes softly. We were almost hypnotized as the big To-Gather community.

  We are To-Gather members lifelong searching for our identity and trying to help young people to become who they are. So the Symposium of National Coordinators called ‘Seven Reasons to Work on The Project’ gave a good theoretical background of the project and it was useful for teachers to know about the learning routes and steps to lead their students.

  Susana, the coordinator of Portugal told an interesting real life experience example about the multiple cultures in the world. Once she was in China and wanted to take pictures of the people, they suddenly said NO! with certain body expressions and strong desicions. She was shocked and unhappy with these manners. And once she was in India everybody wanted to have pictures with her, smiling and posing to the camera. So she started to think that she likes Indians more than Chinese. But later she noticed that this has nothing to do with that… That was just the diversity of cultures and traditions, the multiple choice identities of the world.

  Hugo, the coordinator of Belgium told us the 3M & 3S formules for better quality of life and education. 3M represents models, missions and mirror. Everybody has models. But it is important to be aware of who they are. For missions do not forget your aims. When they look at the mirror they want to be proud. If you say that ı am proud what ı did, then you did a very good job. And everybody agreed that this festival in Jurmala was very good job.

  3S represents, solidarity (to be connected), simple (keep it simple in words and be transparant) and silence (moments of silence is important for education).

  All the performances like dance and drama of Jurmala State Gymnasium were a mixture of national dances, modern arts and aesthetics with special make ups. And they were seperated equally in the programm not to let the audience to be bored for a minute.

  We had lunch in cafeteria between some funny and nice costumed students. They were mascote of the day to take pictures as nice memories.

  In the afternoon there were a variety of workshops and Project Leader Wim Kratsborn asked studensts: “Do you want to be a moviestar?” The talented students surprised him with their role plays.

  We: the festival participants crossed many borders to reach Latvia; the country of the Baltic Sea with Pagan traditions. And it was worthwhile.

  At the workshop called ‘Crossing Borders’ the Latvian group and I (from Turkey) expressed all the 5 countries widely. There were an English teacher of the school helping us for translations to make it more clear to all teachers. So the language barrier was also crossed. And the teachers from the sister school Lithuania were our witnesses. One creative student was telling about her family & friends and the link between them. She was going to Spain for education and her friends were visiting her family and giving her news from her family when she was not in Latvia. She told us how this project helped her life in a good way after Anna Liduma had encouraged her to take part in To-Gather. First she was hesitating because of her English and lack of time. But after she started to do the project about the family and friends she realized how fast her English was improving and made up her mind more sure to move to Spain for her further education to built her identity in a different country (Migration and mobility). She told us that she was thankfull to Anna for trusting her to give a space to her to be in To-Gather Project.

  The workshop called ‘Make Your Own Song’ created a new choir composition with Latvien lyrics to a Vanderlinde song. Listening to them was great fun.

  Jeffrey’s dance workshop gave students a chance to learn his professional dance.It was great fun. Jeffrey and Margarita danced. Then everybody danced from the age of 7 to 77 and they were jumping and dancing together when Arjan van der Linde with the Rock Band Vanderlinde came…

  Jurmala was a special and unique festival. And to be special we need the others. There the others were us, the audience and the participants standing in line.

  “In Multiple Taste Identity” Latvian teachers met with Turkish delights, piÅŸmaniye and Leblebi (a kind of special nuts). The taste is still there…

  Wim is stil singing in my ears: “I did come to Jurmala when your mail came down the line. I have a great time, Oh no I’ve learned a lot, I haven’t said enough…, close your eyes clear your heart…”

  At the end of the day everybody was happy and they are still happy.