DBUD – Finally

It took a while because of Covid but the Erasmus+, EU funded project DBUD – Design Build Use Donate finally took place.

Irmalós Dávid and I had the joy of taking 8 students to the middle of the forest just shy of Sarriselka, Finland recently. Thenearly three year delay in starting this project made it all the more exciting to finally be on the road to Lapland.

It was a long trip. Over 24 hours in total to get there…. flight to Helsinki, train to Kerava, a few hours there getting to know our Finnish hosts and the Lithuanain and Latvian partners, then an 11 hour train ride over night, followed by a 4ish hour bus ride.

Snow, cold, more snow, colder, reindeer, saunas, snow, cold, saunas… in a nut shell, totally awesome. Sure, we made cross-country, or Nordic skis and we learned first aid, pitched a winter tent, built a snow cave, went hiking, saw reigndeer up close, learned all kinds of exciting things about each others culture.

As always in these projects, the so called culture nights were amazing. Song, dance, food, presentations allowed us to get to know our peers even better. Inter cultural experience beyond compare!

Actually, working hard, outside in the -24 degree weather, ok, only – 18 on warmer days, really helped all the participants to learn about their peers. Everything is slower, quieter in these conditions. You had to really had to pay attention, focus and concentrate.

One interesting thing was the physicallity of this project was appreciated by many. When we designed the project we were slightly concerned that many young people would not want to be active. After all, they are not used to being on their feet and/or on the go all day long, day in and day out for days on end. We were proven wrong. These young participants thrived and showed us there is hope for the future!

Yet an other interesting aspect was the surveys our young participants created and then carried out in when we reached Rovaniemi and Helsinki, and possibly a few in Saariselka too. The point being to find out how locals and tourists alike keep in shape an dlive healthy lives in such harsh conditions.

The Hungarian team hit it off so well, they continue to stay in contact and hang out with each other even though they are in different classes/grades. They go out of their way to keep in touch and meet up regularly. Also, to our surpise many of them were more amazed by OOdi than we teachers were.

It was an amazing thing to see all this. Cannot wait to see all the participants at the Hungarian meeting. Time to build a boat or two!

on behalf of Irmalós Dávid, Rob Dawson