Sunday, October 31, 2010

Like autumn leaves ‘EuroArab’ participants finally fall across Europe

It’s Sunday, 31st of October and the atmosphere in Cologne is productive, creative and exciting. Is it autumn that colored the last Day of October so bright with its yellow, red and green leaves hanging in the trees and waiting the right time to slowly fall down and make colorful carpets on the streets? No. We are also waiting, but not for those leaves in the trees…our long awaited ‘leaves’ will be young people from Egypt, Palestine and different European countries that will arrive tomorrow… and our ‘colorful carpet’ will be the Case Study Trip “EuroArab goes Europe: understanding each other’s challenges” formed by all of us: Egyptian, Palestinian and European participants who will tackle global challenges such as migration, integration, gender equality and social inequality in the first 2 weeks of November.

AEGEE-Koln as a welcoming local has the honor to meet the participants first. Even though some of the European participants have already arrived, most of them and especially our partners Better World Foundation with participants from Egypt and Students’ Forum Institute with participants from Palestine will be welcomed on 1st of November when all of us will gather in the official opening.

After spending few days in Cologne, the Case Study Trip will continue its path to Aachen, another German city and AEGEE local, and then we will be heading to Brussels and after that the final stage of the CST will be spent in Maastricht. What exactly will happen in those 4 cities? And how will participants perceive it? Well, we don’t know yet and let’s not hurry to know it before it really happens! Therefore, you are welcome to follow the life of participants during the whole CST from 1st to 14th of November on this blog (cst-euroarab.blogspot.com) where each day 1 Arab and 1 European participant will report on his/her experiences about cultural differences he/she notices, food he/she tastes, global challenges he/she tackles or asks to tackle people on streets, movie he/she sees, a new city he/she explores, a new person he/she meets or maybe a place he/she gets lost. Follow us every day and you will see the CST in the eyes of both Arab and European youngsters.

On behalf of EuroArab Team,
Agnija Kazuša