PEACE- Cross-cultural Understanding Project

One of the biggest highlights of a school year in Secondary School No.1 in Sanok are annual visits of foreign students (some from very exotic places) who participate in the Project PEACE Cross-cultural Understanding organized by AIESEC–an international student-run organization based at The Warsaw School of Economics (SGH). The Project aims at spreading cultural awareness and tolerance among youth from the small towns of Poland. Moreover, it contributes to overcoming the prevailing stereotypes regarding other nationalities and encourages openness towards multicultural diversity in the world. Our school has been engaged in this enterprise since 2004. So far we have hosted in Sanok the representatives of Armenia, Dominicana, Norway, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Canada, Malaysia, Indonesia, Iran, Egypt, Peru, Brazil, India, Russia, Columbia and China. Sounds awesome, doesn’t it? Guests conduct multimedia classes with our youth, during which they present their native countries in terms of their history, culture, as well as political and socio-economic situation. Thanks to slides, multimedia presentations and music, we can find out about their national dances and country-specific traditions, customs and dishes. Furthermore, we participate in guest-run workshops whose general theme is tolerance. Our students, in turn, host foreign visitors in their homes, organize trips for them, act as local guides and familiarize visiting foreigners with Polish cuisine, culture and lifestyle. The benefits of such interaction between young people cannot be overestimated. The students of our Secondary School No.1 enthusiastically anticipate every new edition of the Project. They open up to what is foreign, exotic and different. Additionally, they grasp the unique opportunity to communicate in English on and off school grounds without having to travel afar. They fully realise that English rules! The realisation of the Project, however time-consuming it is, is highly satisfying for all its participants.