A World of Differences Comenius Multilateral Project 2008-10

SOLIDARITY STORIES

01/11/2009 13:01

 A TRIP TO THE REST HOUSE

 

The child’s way of perceiving the world is so different from that of the old that two worlds are almost mutually incomprehensible. But I think the grief and joy are the ones that are in common between two. On our trip to the Rest House, we became aware of that we would no longer know in words that which we have always known in thought. One of our students uttered that “Life has really been hard on these people. There must be more than what we see here”.

 

Whatever the reason might be, nothing could conceivably justify the putting these people into a rest house. Their loneliness can be attributed to many things, to be put aside by their own children maybe or feeling lonely after all the people around them gone away.

 

The students seemed to be fully satisfied with the trip to the Rest House. What students respected so much about them, for many years, through thick and thin, they’d always led the way for their loved ones. To our surprise, in spite of all, they were left here and overwhelmed with loneliness.

 

Anyway, we were sure about cheering them up even if it lasted short.

  

       Çiğdem Kirazlar

 English Teacher

 

  

 

 

THE OLD STAYING AT A REST HOUSE

 

 

They are our grandparents, uncles but especially the elder ones who are staying in silence and loneliness. They had been fallen apart from their loved ones and been waiting for death, the end, with no expectations from the life, itself. They even think of death as an escape from all the things that burden on them.

 

But, it is not difficult actually to pull them out of hopelessness and silence. They do the cleaning on their own; they are tied up to the television all day. The only thing they wish for is having chat with people and feeling about being loved. I think they do not want much from the life just like all of us do. You can clearly see the light in their eyes shining upon you when you cuddle them whole-heartedly how they are in need of love and affectionate.

 

I can tell a story if you like. I joined a trip to the rest house with some of my school friends and excursion club teachers of our school and met the old staying there. They became happy about all the questions we asked. They don’t want to stop talking as if they were in silence for years. Because we made them feel that they are important for us. They are our past. We gave presents to them, got the advantage of their experiences, poured out our feelings, sang and had fun together. It was a wonderful day. I must confess that it was one of the nicest days I’d ever had in my life. Because I experienced both grief and also happiness with them. I’m sure all of my friends felt as the same way as I did. All happened in 2 hours. I wish I stayed there longer. But we had to go back to school.

 

As I explained above, they are our grandparents, uncles but especially the elder ones who are staying in silence and loneliness. We should do something more for them.

 

 

 

           Mehmet ACIOĞLU

   Şanlıurfa GAP Anadolu Lisesi

              10FEN-B Class

 

 

 

  

A WOMAN WHO CHANGED ONE MAN’S LIFE

 

There are so many feelings that affect people. Joy, grief, fun, spirit, anger and many more. The most important of all is the one that affects us much.

 

I wanna talk about our trip to the rest house and these various feelings that made each person feel different things.

 

We were going to visit a rest house in our city. We got informed before and made preparations. I was really wondering about what kind of place it is, what people are doing there and how they spend their whole day. When I arrived there, I was going to find out all the things in my mind anyway. When I first went there, I didn’t know what I was going to do, how I was going to behave or what to speak, but everything seemed to be happened spontaneously. Everybody was different from each other and has different story and different reasons to stay there. When they saw us they became so happy that one could surely understand that. Somebody remembered them in a place that far away from all their families, relatives, friends and acquaintances.

 

There were three that distracted my attention much. One of them is the man who made jokes continuously, smiled a lot despite all the hardships he suffered. The other one said no words at all. He was as if he was afraid to say something. I forced myself to understand the pain inside of him. These must be trying times that he must face up to them. What was it that thrown him away and affected him so badly? I’d really want to learn it but I think I’ll never get at it.

 

Lastly, Ahmet… He had been staring at me since we first arrived. I couldn’t make any sense until I began to chat with him. He told me that I look like his niece died in a traffic accident happened two years ago. He had a sorrowful story as well as the hardest one. Ahmet had deeply loved a girl called Sevim when he was young. He’d wished to marry her but her family had opposed this marriage. From then on, he had been as if he was dead to the world. He had so deeply been in love that there had been nobody to put into his heart in place of Sevim and he had refused to get married. He had written poems to her and sung all the songs for her just as if she had been locked into his heart. He shared his poems with us. Who knows? Perhaps these poems wouldn’t have been written if Sevim had been with him. He never fell in love with someone again. At last he decided to stay at this rest house. When I asked him whether he recognized Sevim when he met her again. He sighed and raised his hand, smiling “Impossible!! It has been more than 40 years since I last saw her”, he said. 40 years hadn’t made Ahmet forget about her. It’s amazingly too long. When I asked him how he spent his life here, he said that he didn’t make any sense how days keep going hastily. It had been Sevim’s love that made him survive all these days and gave strength to carry on. Sevim, out of reach for him ever. She means the world to him. It may be this love story that made Ahmet unforgettable for us and his dedication to love or his patience perhaps…….

 

 

                Eda KÜRKÇÜOĞLU

        Şanlıurfa GAP Anadolu Lisesi

                11 FEN-A Class  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Back

 

 

IES BLAS INFANTE HOSTS A SOLIDARITY COMENIUS PROJECT

 

IES Blas Infante in Córdoba, Spain had the honour of hosting the participants in the last Project meeting of our Multilateral Comenius “A World of Differences”, which took place from the 30th of April to the 6th of May 2010.

A total of 12 members of staff and 41 students from the partner schools attended the meeting. Students were hosted by Spanish families.

 Among other activities carried out along these days we stand out the Intercultural Exhibition opened by our former inspector Mr. Juan Rubio and the visits to Granada and the city of Córdoba, these ones guided by our tourism students. Our European partners attended some of our classes, especially the ones in our plurilingual section, taught in English. They could also enjoy a workshop of Dances of the World.  

But the main Project activities were related to Helping Ryan’s Well Foundation.  We liked the example of Canadian boy Ryan Hreljiac, who when he was only 6 years old, decided to fund a well in Africa and, when he was only 10, he founded his own NGO with the objective of getting safe water to all the children in the world. Along all this school year Blas Infante has been working raising of awareness and helping in the building of a well, water canalization, latrines and a training programme for teachers in a school in Togo. We have written a theatre play in five scenes which tells Ryan’s story. Each partner school had prepared several scenes and the 4th of May we performed the common play. All a success of a very ambitious Project. We were deeply moved by the performance of the play with five different accents where more than 70 students took part.

We also made a recipe book to help the NGO, which we called A World of Recipes. The book has more than 100 recipes from families and staff of the five partner schools, 82 of which were cooked in Córdoba Project meeting on the 4th of May, after the theatre play. Each European student and his or her Spanish partner cooked a dish from his or her home country and another from Spain. The book is still on sale to contribute with Ryan’s Well. We have edited it three times. Our school has already raised 2380€ and our European partners more than 1000€.

We conclude this European School Partnership with the satisfaction of having established multiple cooperation and friendship links among the participating schools at the same time as having contributed to such an exemplary solidarity Project.

There was the third project meeting of our Comenius School project "A World of Differences" in Sanliurfa, Turkey between 19th - 23 rd October 2009. The participating schools were from Spain, Germany and Hungary. There were 29 teachers and students from the visitor schools. The teachers stayed in "El-Ruha" hotel ; which is five starred and locaded  nearby "Fish Lake" (Balıklıgöl) and the students were hosted by the Turkish families. On the first day at our school "GAP Anadolu Lİsesi" we had an opening ceremony. The mayor of Sanliurfa and the headteacher had opening speeches. Then all the students at our school enjoyed the international fair. They got informed about their schools, countries and culture. Then, on the second day, the Spanish and German students had a theatre performance at "Vali Kemal Gazezoğlu Kültür Merkezi". All students of our school enjoyed it as well. After the play, our guests visited the old city "Harran" in the afternoon. On the third and the last day, we all enjoyed the boat tour in the town of "Halfeti" and rare birds called "Ibis" in Birecik. Finally, we said "good bye" to all our guests at Sanliurfa GAP Airport as we said "wellcome" when they had arrived. 

 

Meeting in Uffenheim, Bavaria, Germany.The meeting took place from the 22nd to the 24th of April 2009. More than 120 students from the five schools have met. We have hold poetry workshops about interculturality where students from the five countries have worked together. The Turkish school presented us the traditional Turkish wedding ceremony, the Spanish school performed a theatre play about the Córdoba of the Three Cultures, the Hungarian school danced a song about "differences" and performed folk dances. All the schools presented their schools to the gym. All the visiting students enjoyed the German hospitality in homestays. Thank you very much, Uffenheim.