Celebrate what makes us one

On Friday there was a festival in Pécs, from volunteers for volunteers, on the topic of (cultural) diversity.

Thanks for the picture to Swenja Kraus of Támaszpont MOPKA, who allowed me to use it for my blog.

From volunteers - for volunteers

During an EVS the volunteer is expected to show a bit of self initiative and maybe even create a project on their own. For me this is the weekly teahouse, and for a group of volunteers working in a kindergarden in Pécs the organisation of the Diversity Festival, which Linda, our new volunteer Isabelle and I visited.

It was a really spontaneous decision, I'd already heard about the festival weeks ago from another volunteers from my trainings, but only when LInda said that the registration for the festival is still opened we decided to take a closer look at it.

With a few messages via Messenger the needed information was exchanged and we started our journey early on Friday morning with the long range bus to Pécs, which is located at the southern border of Hungary, nearly four hours busride away.

A small festival in familiar company

The people working in the kindergarden in Pécs are mostly from Germany or Austria - and for me it's the first time since coming to Hungary (except for my short trip to Hamburg) that I'm surrounded by German native speakers, and I catch myself more than once switching to German on accident, instead of speaking a language everyone understands.

The Diversity Festival isn't as big as I expected it to be. We are maybe fourty to fifty people, from all parts of Hungary and many different countries, and there are quite a few people from my trainings, which makes me very happy, of course. With a few of them I'll continue my journey tomorrow, to celebrate the birthday and goodbye of one of our Germans.

During the afternoon we make ourselves t-shirts, discuss differences between our countries, experiences we had during our EVS and more and finally go out on the streets, in our cool new shirts to raise people's awareness of us and take a group picture close to the old city walls.

We all have lots of fun and the band, which will play for us in the evening and came all the way from London for this, has mixed itself in our group, too, and talks with us about everything and nothing.

The concert after dinner is fantastic. The singer, Marianna Zappi, has an amazing stage presence and voice and doesn't consider herself too good not to share all the stories behind her songs.

The message of the evening is clear:

We are the future. We are, what can move the future. We have the power to change the world together. We are all different, but we are strong together and there is so much that connects us, and so many differences making us all wonderful individuals.

The first step for this is already made.

And so, together, we celebrate, what makes us one.