Village - the beginning of the journey.

On Friday, June 1, we arrived in Vidin, Bulgaria - our first destination. It took us 2 days to get there by car - and I must say we saw many amazing sites and met some true characters along the way. During the drive, we stopped to visit different villages and cities in Slovakia, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria where former synagogues still stand - some in a better state of repair than others. In Subotica, Serbia, we spent our first night of the journey in a brand new hotel in the city center. It was so new that no one in town even knew it existed. (Mind you, it is situated on the main pedestrian square in the center of town.) There, we met with a group of budding activists who wanted to learn more about the Polish Solidarity movement of the late 1980s. The next morning, we continued our journey and saw more synagogues and sites, mostly churches and municipal buildings. That second evening, we stayed in a roadside hotel connected to a gas station in a village called Svrlig, still in Serbia. Gordana, Chedo and Gaga, partners of MTO, warmly welcomed us into their home for dinner and a long discussion of the irrational processes and procedures related to receiving grant funding from the EU. The following afternoon, we reached our destination - Vidin. Can you believe that we bypassed both Belgrade, Serbia and Budapest, Hungary in order to arrive in Bulgaria on time? I guess that means I'll have to come back at some point to explore these places.

OK. So - to the point of this post...

On Saturday, June 2, we began our workshop - the Village Project. As I have mentioned before, Village is a kind of curriculum that encourages democracy, civic participation and social responsibility. It is intended to be carried out by children ages 8-12. In Vidin, we conducted a very basic workshop on this program with 12 Serbs, 12 Bulgarians and 2 Moldovans - all educators - with the idea that they would take the information back home and implement the program in their schools. Village Project is a dynamic event with unique aspects that depend very much on the interest and motivation of the group of participants. Therefore, it is difficult to describe the project in concrete terms, but I will do my best to give you the overview (see link for more details).

During Village Project, the group of participants actually physically builds a village from scratch, but everything is done on a scale of 1:25, which means that it's miniature and there is a lot of math involved (YUCK!). Each person or "peep," the name of the being that lives in the village, receives a plot of land on which to build a home - and then you build your home with the craft materials provided. Just imagine 26 adults in a room making small houses out of cardboard, paint, paper and glue over the course of 8 days. It was a remarkable sight. Some of them took the task very seriously and considered every last detail down to the leaves, stones, and roof tiles. But, alas, this is not the point of the project.

The brilliant idea behind Village is that once you have done all that you can do on your private property, you start to think about the village as a whole, and different questions start to arise. Will there be any public buildings in the village? If so, where will they be located? And who will build them? How will the community make decisions about these things? Will we have a system of governance? What will it look like? Who will be in charge? How will we determine who will be in charge? Will each peep have responsibilities? Jobs? As these questions arise, the peeps come together to discuss issues and make decisions. Sometimes good decisions are made and everyone is happy, while at other times poor decisions are made that frustrate the village citizens. So - then the meetings and conversations continue... It is a very hands-on way of teaching children (and adults, too) about government and the common good.

Because we only had 8 days to implement the project, it was difficult to take people away from building their homes and to get them to recognize the issues that make the Village Project such a useful tool. Another MAJOR obstacle we encountered was language. The workshop was conducted mostly in English, but many of the participants did not speak English. Some translation was needed into Bulgarian, Serbian and Romanian, which took up a lot of time. Despite this, the project was well received by the participants and the community of Vidin. The local media came to document the final ceremony and to see our village, Oaza ("Oasis"). I also spoke to many participants who already were thinking of ways to implement the program in their schools.

It was a great experience for me to see the project in action, and to debrief with Julie, Ala and various participants each day. Through those conversations, some participants were able to work through the finer points of the project and gain a deeper understanding of the possible impact that this curriculum could have on children. If even ten percent of the program participants take what they have learned back to their schools, then we have the possibility of teaching thousands of children in the region about some very important issues. I have received e-mail addresses from many participants, such as Holly from Vidin, Milan from Svirlig, and, of course, Galina and Mariana from Cahul - and I hope to remain in contact with them throughout the year to learn about the successes and challenges of the Village Project in their communities.