Programme

The Programme of Meet the freak#5 is here!! Get your glasses. Tricky to make it bigger, sorry!

 

Already thought about how you would like to spend your time at Meet the freak? There are various possibilities offered by the Meet the freak programme itself, which consists of different parts – some more prepared and some more waiting for your initiative and creativity! Below you can find a programme schedule and read brief explanations of the programme parts.

The programme of Meet the freak #5 is build around the topic neighbours in touch. The different parts reflect several aims of the project, which are:

· Raising intercultural awareness and sensitivity of everyone involved

· Supporting volunteering and active participation

· Encouraging self organisational skills by creating and learning together

Some more facts

In e.g. the Art groups where the different groups are asked to create together interactive workshops and performances we expect the participants to experience intensive intercultural experiences. Through using Amateur Art, we expect to overcome possible language barriers and get to know in a creative way the different approaches to various topics and maybe also problems. This working approach allows the participants, facilitated by the Art group leader to get to know different cultures in a positive way.

Chill &Chat groups

These are the daily reflection/evaluation sessions ran by the Freak leaders. Every Freak leader will facilitate one group. In the Chill & chat groups, a certain group of people meet once a day to reflect upon their experience of the day, the interaction and exchange of cultural and personal habits..  By running these Chill and chat meetings, we would like to offer a space for participants to  exchange their experience and to talk about possible problems . These groups will be  created according to “reflection skills”, geographical balance, gender balance and Art group balance. This division will create 9-10 diverse groups which, through talking, will exchange different views and opinions.

 

The Chill & Chat groups have several functions:

 Reflection of the participants concerning:

- general reflection (how is it going, what was good, fears, concerns, …)

- intercultural learning
- additional reflections and learning experiences based on the programme flow

Next to ‘classical’ group discussion, several creative methods will be used for this process.

Sharing of the different experiences.

In this way participants rethink their day but also get to hear what the other participants do. The exchange of experience from the different Art groups also prepares the participants for the interaction in the second week during the Freak projects.

Ensuring that the participants are aware of the flow of the programme and the reasons behind.

This will be done by clarifying practicalities, giving space for questions and having the mid-term evaluation in the small groups.

Practical parts.

The groups will also have some practical responsibilities (waking up shift, cleaning up the venue, …)

The first Chill & Chat will be held in the national groups. The reason for this came out of our experience from the past editions of “Meet the freak”. It often appeared (after dividing the reflection groups only according to gender, geographical and “Art group” balance) that we had very talkative and very quiet groups. To optimise all participants’ reflection possibilities we will now only divide the groups after a first impression of the Freak leaders of how the participants behave in a “reflection situation”. By taking this factor (“reflection skills”) into account we hope to support the learning process of the participants even better. Consequently the division criteria will be handled according to the following priority: geographical balance, gender balance, “reflection skills”, Art group balance.

Art groups

The Art groups are art workshops organised two times each for three days.  We plan to have seven different Art groups: music, theatre, dance, media, visual arts, juggling and DJing. These Art groups provide a safe environment for participants to try out the different art fields, gain/improve their art skills, express themselves in a creative way and interact with an international and local community. All the different Art groups work with this year´s theme of Neighbours in touch. Besides incorporating this theme in the daily work they will work towards an ending product. This will always be either a performance or an interactive workshop. This ensures from an early stage of the project interaction with the local community. The first “ending product” will be presented/implemented at the campsite and the second as a “Final event”. Both events will be promoted towards the local community beforehand.

As the Art groups will happen in the first week of the project we want to structure the environment by running well-prepared workshops that do not only focus on ‘doing art’. The Art group leaders (that are responsible for preparing and running the Art groups) will use different methods that give space for group/trust building, stimulating sharing and taking into account the intercultural environment. There will be a reflection round after presenting the final “product” of the Art groups to reflect on the experience and to share it with other attendants of the Art group.
An extra very important message we want to transfer to participants through the work we do in the Art groups is that everyone can do Art!! This is a very important principle of our work in the “Meet the freak” project.

Hokus focus

The Hokus focus workshops are a space where everyone (participants and organisers) can offer workshops. These workshops take place in the first week in the late afternoon. Especially participants will be  encouraged and supported by the Freak leaders to run their own workshops. This support will happen during preparation and implementation of the workshops. The subject of the workshops can very much differ (in the past years we had salsa, tai chi, percussions, jewellery making, sand castles building, …). Next to  encouraging the involvement and initiative of the participants, also the organisers get the opportunity to take a different role here by offering a workshop in a field of their personal interest. The coordination of the Hokus focus workshops will be held by the Freak leaders.

Freak projects

In the second week of the project the participants get the chance to get even more involved and implement their own ideas. This part of the programme has a less clear outcome then the Art groups because only the method and support is prepared, not the content. The main requirement is that the outcome is a performance or interactive workshop that can be “implemented” in the Final event, which should happen at the nearby lake area (for details see below). This process will be supported by the Freak leaders, Art group leaders and other organisers (No name team, MacGyvers, Final event coordinator).
The Freak projects are the place in the programme where the different aims and objectives of the project come together. This is so because of the following reasons:

•  we work in intercultural – and in many other ways diverse – groups

• we facilitate reflection on this experience in the Chill & Chat groups
• this reflection – combined with extra support – contributes to the initiative and self organising of participants
• we interact, create and cooperate together
• we combine different art fields and try to show the added value of this interaction
• we work towards a final product that will be implemented in presentation and interaction with the local community

For facilitating the smooth flow of the Freak projects, a special team called No name team was established to support the participants in the process of establishment, running and presenting the results of the Freak projects.

Final event

The final event will happen as a big presentation of the outcomes of the Freak projects. It should happen at a lake area, which is located about 10 minutes walk from the campsite. The Final event will be promoted before the project in cooperation with the local volunteers and the Final event coordinator. The participants will implement the projects that were developed. Besides closing the process for participants by implementing the outcome we hope to invite some local bands in order to make the final event more attractive for the local community.

Free time activities

In the evenings where there is no official programme planned, we will organise different opportunities for the participants to spend their free time. E.g. music evening, sports, table football tournament, …
We are also hoping to organize a football match to support this year´s theme of Neighbours in touch by meeting local inhabitants on a sports field, where the knowledge of a common language (besides the language of fair play) is not needed. Next to the clear objective of having fun these activities also support the group atmosphere and try to make participants feel at ease in this international environment.