POLAND YOUTH EXCHANGE - OCTOBER 2006

The youth exchange group from Poland arrived in Lewis on Monday the 31st of July.  Since then they have been living at the Scaladale Centre and have been taking part in various activities that have been arranged for them.  Pictured below are some of the group kayaking, abseiling and taking part in a Scotland v Poland tug of war at the Carloway Cattle Show.

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The group going on exchange this year have started to prepare for the trip in October.  They've been bagpacking to raise funds and hope to take part in other fundraising activities to make sure the trip is as enjoyable as possible.

The group met up on Saturday 10th June for a wee get together, they are hosting the group from Poland at the end of July so plans had to be made and an activities programme finalised; but first things first a wee bit of fun in the sun!!

The Lewis and Harris Youth Clubs Association has been serving the Young of the Island since 1967. It’s made up a dozen or so volunteers, and deals with insurance, child protection and disclosure issues, organises the very successful Momentum pre driving programme, manages the Scaladale outdoor centre where a full time activities coordinator is currently employed, as well as various sports, art and crafts events, girls days, and recently a Scotland wide dance training event.

Traditionally however the centrepiece event of the LHYCA has been the Annual International Youth Exchange. With exchanges to France, Germany, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark having taken place over the past years this year the committee thought it would carry out a slightly different kind of project to one of the former Communist block counties. Contact was made with a Polish youth group in 2005 and after much planning and organising an exchange project was finally organised for 2006. But this time rather than just 2 countries partaking it the exchange there were 4.

‘We wanted to try out something new’ said LHYCA chairman Fallon Macarthur. ‘So we decided to try out what’s called a multilateral exchange with 4 different nationalities partaking’, ‘there was a Scottish, Turkish, Polish and Lithuanian youth group all together’, ‘the activities took place in the cities of Krakow, Rybnik and in a resort on the Poland Czech border. In fact it was on the junction between 3 countries The Czech Republic, Poland and Slovakia, we went to where they meet and were in 3 countries in a few minutes, it was excellent’ he continued.

‘It was particularly interesting being with Lithuanian and Turkish youths, we really did not know what to expect, but we were in for a real treat, the Turkish group were musicians, and the Lithuanian group were dancers. All the groups had to prepare a presentation, we did a mini play of Robert the Bruce and the story of the spider, concluded by a sword dance and Scottish country dancing which went down really well. But the musical and dance skills of the Turkish and Lithuanian groups was simply breathtaking’.                                    

Amongst the activities was a visit to a salt mine, and the Jewish quarter of Krakow where ‘Schindler's list’ was filmed.

When asked about a more infamous place in Southern Poland, an LHYCA member said ‘ we have been, stood, touched, sensed the ghosts, in the place called Auschwitz’.

In Poland were. DJ Macleod, Fallon Macarthur, Ruth MacAskill, Shona Paton, Mari Crate, Ann MacDonald, Mairi Maclennan, Lena Dawson, Sharon Martin, Kirsty Gontier, Lewis Saunders, Alisdair MacLeod, Ross Maciver

Report written by Donald John Macleod