Our last destination

Our visit in Latvia started with visiting Parliament which called Latvian Saeima (a Latvian word for a community gathering). During the meeting with Ušakovs, a leader of political party “Harmony centre” who is MP and one of the we had an opportunity to discover an ethnical issues connected with Russian population in Latvia.

Another meeting in Parliament was with leader of one of leading political parties Krišjānis Kariņš and it was like the door was closed for the rest of the world and especially for the paparazzi!!! It was a time of sharing and I felt that this conversation was based on a human level. This means it was not political minded, or that both of us had to be careful what we should or shouldn’t say. What I gained from this meeting was to jump into the life adventures, it’s so easy to just go and let it all happen while if you take sometimes a step aside and not follow the mainstream, amazing things can happen. Of course there will be difficulties and challenges on the road but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t jump! He shared about his background and that he grew up as a Latvian in the United States of America and took the step to come and live in Latvia 10 years ago. He settled up a business and later on he got involved with the politics. In his party there are many different people, with various backgrounds - an actor, a layer, business people etc. People with different visions but the reason why they can work together is the common ground and that they are sharing the same values. It ‘s like Action for Europe, we all have different experiences and backgrounds but we are sharing together Initiatives of Change, the same values and Action for Europe is bringing us together. He shared about his life as a politician and being a person in the society who everybody recognize. He shared that sometimes he even not open up the papers and going to his countryside house to recharge his battery and getting new energy trough spending time with his family. I was so amazed to have this time and that he took his time to spend together with us. Nothing felt strange or was questioned what we were doing. I really felt this is the special thing of Initiatives of Change what you can’t explain but only can experience and that's what happened during this meeting with this famous Latvian politician, a different background but we had something in common and beautiful!


Also Latvian team has arranged a Fact Hunting during our days in Riga and we had a possibility to explore the beauty of old city initially used to be a Livonian village and after that developed by Germans. The tour was leaded by Artjoms who has been participated in F4F course a couple years ago and has been traveled with Action for Change in America last year. Once we suddenly appeared at the last floor of Albert Einstein Center where we found Egils who is part of Latvian IofC team shown us nice views of Riga city.


One of Latvian team members Sandra, who have been involved in F4F visiting course, school program in UK, in activities in Caux and much more, organized for Action For Europe team meeting with a people from youth NGOs to discuss the role of values in informal education. Starting with a question “what do we value the most in your life”, we between all the participants shared our beliefs, challenges and how do we find a balance when we have to work “I find Japanese people very strict about timings and I felt very disappointed when I had to stop my performance because I needed more time. It’s not so important for me to be so punctual, but in some point I have to understand that we have very different cultural backgrounds and I respect it!” said one of the participants. It turned out to be really productive and open dialog, where we brought up various issues connected with the work of NGOs in Latvia and came up with a shared conclusion “there are much more than only one solution in difficult situation and the easiest way should not be excused by comparing with bad examples”.

Meeting in Latvian office of Transparency International has been an opportunity to meet professor Rasma Kārkliņš who is involved in corruption studies for many years and published a few books on this subject.

Another afternoon we had a time with Kaspars Goba – artist, journalist and good man (how some of our friends described him). 12 years ago, just a few years after Latvia gained independence he started to work in a freethinkers magazine “Rigas Laiks” where all his mates “also hated journalism” as he said with a mischievous smile. “Normally reporter goes to a place of event, picks the opinion of those who are most visibly involved and makes the news out of it. I like to live for a while with a situation, problem or event and to find out all it’s realities, to see it from “inside”. Kaspars have been writing and also in recent years making a movies about different social and environmental processes. “government wanted to allow to make a shipping port in very unique place in Riga. I felt sorry for that and then I made a movie to show to everyone the beauty of the place. And it works! The fighting doesn’t work, but showing the reality as it is – it touches and makes people more aware about what’s going on!” Kaspars showed us his movie “Seda” about the countryside village Seda which was built in the middle of last century, in Soviet times for workers who came from Russia, Georgia, Byelorussia, Ukraine etc.

We have been invited by Sandra to her apartment where a lot of people connected with IofC and just friends came together to have make-new-friends-party. Sandra has been involved at IofC for a number of years participating in at Foundation for Freedom course and also has been involved on School Program in Britain and now she work with youth organizations in Latvia and abroad.

Chai, Chai, chai...... it was a year ago that I had real Indian chai......and now Inese Voika offered us a cup of real Indian chai at her place together with her children. After different meetings in Riga and at the Schiphol airport in The Netherlands we had an opportunity to meet each other again but than as an Action for Europe group. Inese has been one of them who supported us this Action for Europe idea from the beginning.

And now Action for Europe became a reality we were sitting, sharing and drinking Indian tea at her place, unbelievable.....

We had a time at her place to discover her amazing house where she was living in with her family, with very funny details, it felt like a museum. We could share about our experiences on Action for Europe and she was sharing her experiences.

Marielle talked about Midsummer’s Night: “In The Netherlands I never celebrated the longest day while my father have been always mentioned it. Now I had the opportunity to discover the Latvian traditions together with my Dutch friends, Christian, Christina and Koosje. On Friday the 22^nd of June we arrived at Ulla's countryside place, an very idyllic place in the forest near the sea. It were actually three spectacular nights with a big bonfire, a lot of Ulla's friends, we were making crowns, jumping over the bonfire, telling stories, swimming in the sea and enjoying each others company. One tradition I did was staying awake the whole night and seeing the sun rise from the sea on the 24^th of June. If you don’t see the sun that morning than the Latvians say you will sleep the whole year. I hope now I have got enough energy to stay awake and have a year full of great challenges and adventures I am ready to jump!”

Photo: Aris Ceders

And now we are almost on the finish line – moving from Miķeļbāka to Liepāja to do our team evaluation and see where to go next from this point!?


Marielle, Ilze and Kostya

UK

During our time in England there was this a bit strange feeling when all the names and images from the books read in childhood turned into real places. Liverpool, Nottingham, Thames... Meeting familiar names at every corner made some uncertain memories come to me just by themselves.

As we arrived in UK in Liverpool Airport Howard Grace and David Curtis met us there and drove straight to Sheffield, which take 2,5 hours. And to pick us up from the airport they made this 2,5 hours trip twice!

It was great to see all the old friends at the very first evening: Howard Grace, David and Judith Curtis, John and Anne Carlisle, Krish Raval Violetta and Altaf.

Action for Life 3 small reunion:)

Next day we visited an office of Learn to Lead program, where Krish, Altaf and Violetta shared with us their experience. In Crimea we have a project, called Young Leaders Club that seems similar to me. So I became very curious to know how does L2L train young people and how we can learn from its more than 10 years experience.

In the evening we had an opportunity to meet people from IofC in Sheffield. We all gathered in a cozy house of David and Judith where the meeting was very much family-like.

It was raining all the time, while we were in Sheffield, maybe just to let us experience the classical English weather, just as from the books of Dickens:)

In Nottingham where we stopped on our way to London we visited a school and had one-hour presentation/discussion with the students, after which we went to the house of Richard Hawthorne for a nice meal.

Skit we played in the school helped to think afterwards together about our life experience, hopes and dreams, hurts and fears.

Next day in Greencoat Place, which is IofC centre in London, there was a big gathering with a lot of people invited specially for this event. The topic of the day was “Where do we go from here?” Looking at a nice invitation leaflet I even got a bit nervous. It all seems so serious, what are we going to contribute to the day? We don’t have time to prepare for the event – will we have what to say, will we find the right words?

It turned out to be not so scary:) That was a nice day with a possibility to meet old friends and to get to know new, to talk to people and to listen to them.

On Sunday we had some time just for sightseeing and we went down the Thames to Greenwich Village. That was a beautiful trip where I finally felt that I’m in London – the city with it’s own spirit and history. Was funny how all the texts about “London is a capital of Great Britain”, that I was learning by heart in school in English classes, came back to me by recognizing all the famous places!:)

In Greenwich

Across the world's divides:)

Being in London, I for the first time in my life saw so clearly how much are mixed up all the nations and cultures in the world. Made me think about my own identity and what is MINE place on the planet.

Lena

Some notes from Holland

We had a time in that week-end that was called "Inspiration time". It means that we took 2 hours to send in silence, being only by ourselves. I was looking forward to this time just to be with my own thougths and feelings.
Ilze, Zukhera (girl from New-York, that I was sharing a room with) and me, we took a bicycles and went to a beach. That was a nice road:smell of the sea, fresh grass and flowers, wet soil, sounds of laughter and bell, ringing on Ilze's bicycle... I suddenly understood that I wasn't cycling since my childhood. I almost forget this feeling of wind on my face and freedom inside me, and willingness to find something new and special on every corner.
There I understood how it is importamt to live on a moment, to enjoy it and feel life at full. It was a simple thought, but very important for me. :)

Vika.

the land of million channels

The land of million channels, flowers and joyfull, tall people - that' s how I would describe The Netherlands. Welcomed by Dutch team we arrived there in Thursday' s late afternoon. As the new day started we were introduced not only to initiatives our host team were involved into, but got also a perspective on a history of land and nation. If God created land, than Dutch created Holland - they are used to laugh!


Weekend was a real treat - we had a two days spiritual camp in Schoorl - in conference campus just a few kilometres from the sea. One could definately feel connected to the nature there! But not only beautiful surrondings we experienced there. Action For Europe group were joined by people from Dutch team and also by Bhavesh Patel (UK) and John Freebury (Canada, Moldova). Bhav runned a Open Space Tecnology learning workshop, giving us an insight how to find solutions in complex situations, based on idea that the right idea at the right moment amongst the right people will arrise.
The toppic of this workshop was on Inspiration and even if the main idea was to have an insight on how the Open Space technonogy really works, all of us seemed to be very inspired by the process, by each other, by nature ...inspiration was welcomed and it came!

On Sunday evening we finally met Marielle' s family in their home - friendly chatting and enjoying meal (Marielle' sfather prepared unbelievably delicious soup for us) and company of each other, singing and laughing, sharing and discussing Open Space experience and many, many other issues.

Most of us are not used to do this anymore. Guess what?!?! After good weekend Monday morning we went to university. Dr. Wim Blauw in Erasmus University Rotterdam shared his life experience being a sociologist and professor to many foreign students as well as different kinds of a leadership. But Monday evening we had a possibility to meet up IofC Netherlands friends ans members in a Open house meeting in Amaliastraat office. Amazing to see people we have met before in Caux and other places and to see them in their own country, among their mates and also family members! We were sharing our vision, challenges and wishes. And hopes as well!

Another insipring event was meeting silverschmith Jan Nouhuys and his family in Netherlands silvertown Schoonven - he shared with us his life story and story of his life's passion - making beauty out of silver.

Next stop - Norway

Next destination of our Scandinavian part of journey was Norway. Starting early morning by bus we were going to Oslo. For some of us from Eastern Europe it was quite unusual to cross the countries border without any passport control and even any stop. Picked by Axel and Sturla at the bus station we had approached to the small and beautiful 100 years old castle right at the center of Oslo which is an Initiatives of Change house in Norway. We had a nice chance to see a little bit of Oslo going to Frogner park where a lot of unusual sculptures had been found. The first evening with Norwegian friends has been devoted to know-each-other-better games and we were having a lot of fun!

Opening our eyes next morning we found that we brought with us a sunny weather. This Sunday AfE team had an wonderful opportunity to take part at barbecue party . Amazing! People all ages from families involved in MRA/IofC came together playing games, talking, eating a hundred (or a little bit less) kinds of cakes.

At the evening we had an opportunity to meet two friends Leif Hovelsen and Jens J.Wilhelmsen who shared with us a pieces of their life’s stories. They have experienced a life full of adventures and personal struggles and gave us an inspired examples of challenges they faced.

Raising up next morning we went to the heart of Norway democracy – Norwegian Parliament. There we spent some time looking inside parliamentary house and also had an hour conversation with deputy leader of Christian Democratic Party Mr. Knut Arild Hareide, former minister of environment. On the meeting AfE team presented themselves and also Mr. Hareide shared his experience of making decisions to be involved in political life.

Next stop of our Oslo adventure was a Norwegian Foreign Policy Institute where we meet a three experts who work at the field of Eastern Europe studies providing Norwegian society an update analysis what happens in this very shaky part of Europe. Also we discussed the issue of objectivity in the field of analyse and expertise.

One of our hosts Gudrun introduced us with work she is doing – together we visited the Oslo City Mission where drug addicts and homeless people could receive a support in difficult life situations.

Following visit to the Central Jamaa Mosque in Oslo had been for some of us a first visit to such a place. Meeting with Imam gave us a piece of the intercultural picture of modern Norway.

In the evening in Open meeting in Oslo IofC house was a chance for AfE group to share challenges and hopes they face on their lives as well their societies face nowadays. A man from the Norwegian business community mentioned afterward that he has started to believe that eastern Europeans could give to the West a new spiritual impetus for growing.

On Tuesday “Action for Europe” team had a possibility to meet young Norwegians, one of our hosts - Camilla’s students at Assiden college in Drammen. “It’s a exiting and meantime a bit unknown moment when two important parts of my life meets each other –my students, my job I really feel a passion for and my IofC friends. They are studying arts and media and they are the ones as well who after some years will shape our worldviews through media!”

Camilas husband Axel welcomed us in an art-galery where he works and introduced with a bits and pieces of Norway art, but afterwards Camilla and Axel invited us into their house to celebrate Marielle’s birthday! We enjoyed a lot playing football, chatting, having strawberries, getting to know our hosts and their friends, having a discussions about what really matters to us as individuals and meantime as a part of society!

Wednesday Abi and Herman Qvam’s invited us to their home based near As town and offered wonderful national dish (don’t remember a name but sweet and using as a starter). Abi and Herman told a story how they have started to be involved at MRA\IofC receiving a big international delegations in their house what was quit challenged for them.

Then we went to the University of Environment and Bioscience and had a chance to look at the tractor which had been developed by Herman and few his colleges due to use it in development countries. The special thing about this tractor is that it could be constructed very easy even from used components and could use organic based fuel. “The seed of this idea was MRA meeting 25 years ago when I had a dinner together with people who were talking about positive change and I questioned myself “What can I do?””. Herman and his friends have worked on this initiative without any support of government, nevertheless this invention received a prize in World Bank’s competition Global Development Marketplace 2006.

Same evening together with Norwegian team we discussed a possible continuation of AfE project as well as different ways of European IofC community common development.

Next day we had a chance to participate on the weekly gathering of Oslo Initiatives of change community meeting where people usually shared their quite time insights and thoughts.

Ilze and Kostya

Karlstad

We came to Karlstad from Vadstena city quite tired from the trip, but dinner in the house of Ove Jensen was what made us alive and full of energy again.
That was the evening when we saw clearly that one never knows when and where he will meet old friends! The dinner was cooked by Emmanuel Mutisya from Kenya that we all met in Caux and his friend Steven that Mariella met in Kenya during her African Action for Life outreach. That was wonderful evening when we shared our stories and heard the life story of Ove Jensen which was the most inspiring.
And as you may imagine, Jambo song was very popular that evening!


Next day we started from visiting Karlstad University where we had conversation with students, teachers and just friends.
From there we went to the Gejersskolan School where we met some students that were in Panchgani this winter. We were very much curious to know their impression from the place that means so much to us!

Emmanuel took us to his store where he sales African handicrafts. Great place, beautiful things, good spirit!

We were invited to the dinner to Leif and Christina Lindstrom house, where we enjoyed an amazing soup, which all the Ukrainians who used to eat soup almost every day were so much missing!

The last meeting we had was meeting with youth in Pentecostal church Karlstad Pingstkyrka. We attended service there, after which we had an opportunity to talk to church youth and share our experience.

That was the last day in Sweden – next day we went to Norway, where we are staying at the moment.
So our blog is to be continued!

Lena

Vadstena

That was time for us to pause and to listen to people.
Vadstena is a holy city that is famous for the European Saint Holy Brigida.
We visited there museum at Sancta Brigida Kloster and Pilgrim centre where we were tempted to go on pilgrimage straight away:)

Lena

Linkoping!

Our travel away from Stockholm started with Lenas’ birthday!!! During this amazingly busy day besides all the meetings we had, we still managed to eat couple of cakes and sing some birtday songs:)

Also meeting old friends like Magdalena!!! (yesss) from AfL3 at her mothers' place with a nice coffee and cake (the amazing one!).

It is always so wonderful to re-unite and to see how our network is spreading around the Europe and becoming not only the network of teams or people, but also the network of great friendships!

In Linkoping we have been visiting a folkhighschool - this is a common way in Nordic countries of continuing education for older people! Really nice way of giving an opportunity for everyone to study and to enjoy it. We met with school teachers and shared our experiences and visions and decided that we should meet again - next time already with their students and do something together!

Our host during 2 days stay in Linkoping and surroundings was Elisabeth Hamrin, who has been our Swedish mother!

And when we had an amazing meeting in her appartment with quite a number of interesting people from within and outside of IofC she surprised us with an Action for Europe cake, which was so beautiful that we almost didn't agree to cut:) Really tasty!!!

Thank you, very much, Elisabeth!

The same evening we had an opportunity to visit local church, being part of a mass and afterwards to have a discussion with a church group there during which we somehow managed to challenge each other with the question of importance of sharing in our lives. That was really interesting evening and our discussions extended till it was getting dark. And as you might know in this time of the year here it gets dark really late:)

During the mass there was a song, which touched me very deeply and made me even cry... "Take oh, take me as I am..." - those who have been in AfL3 - do you remember how Chris L., Diana and others were singing this song sometimes in Mammi room? Oh.. it brought me back so many memories and feelings from our times in Asia... It is unbelievable I heard this song somewhere in church in Sweden.. Suddenly I understood how much AfL and everything I saw in Asia has meant to me. Each one of you, who I met on my way and with whom I lived together with..

***

During our time in Linkoping Elisabeth took us to an amazing place - Vadstena monastery, where Saint Brigita lived. It is a pilgrimige centre with a special philosophy and atmosphere.. We spent the biggest part of the day there talking with priest and different other bright people we met... This is beautiful place for silence and peace...

A place to come back to...

Ulla

Stockholm!

Yes, we know, that we have been keeping you our of information for quite a long time (also receiving a lot of messages from you), bet we hope that we may still be forgiven:) - our time has been pretty full in Sweden, so now we will try to catch up with some news.

***

Sweden received us with total change of the weather - after Crimeas +37 in Stockholm was just about +8. Quite a difference! For some of us, who are not so much fond of heat it was a nice suprise, while some of others needed to warm themselves up.

We were warmly welcommed in Stockholm by local IofC team and have been staying in their families for couple of nights - a real feeling of warmth and family.

As leaving Ukraine our team became smaller (Ilze and Anna could not join us in Sweden) here our AfE family got a new member - Christer Lilliehook joined us to be with us for the rest of our journey in Sweden. And he has been an amazing supporter and a father to all of us! Thank you, Crister!!

***

As Sweden has open its doors and heart for a lot of refugees, also our first day in Sweden was pretty much connected with this issue - we have been visiting Spånga Blåband Center for asylum seekers and refugees which is helping them to integrate in Swedish society (Dr. Harry Ferngrens wife - Dr. Kerstin Ferngren is working in this center). It has been an amazing opportunity to understand a bit more about this very important issue in Sweden, especially when an Eritrian man joined in the meeting and shared his feelings and experiences about what it really means to be an imigrant.

Livstycket, is a center for immigrant women working with textiles. This was an amazing place, where some of us really wanted to stay:) The thing is, that here, besides teaching Swedish language they also do arts. All kind of beautiful things you could imagine, very often using patterns of their culture. The atmosphere what is there is just impossible to describe. So much inspiration...

The things that these women make is possible to buy and also quite often they are making exhibitions. A while ago they have started new project - to decorate tents, which are used as shelters for extreme situations in Asia, the tents, which originally are totally white and might be quite depressive they are decorating with doves of peace and just colorful paintings. It looks amazing. Afterwards they send them back to the country and they can continue using them, but just having them more beautiful.

One of the newest things they were making was a textile with pattern of different kind of bags and suitcases. As they told us - the bags are representing their reality - arriving from different countries and having all their life just in one bag. At that moment we felt something common with them, as we are also rigth now on our way with our life just in one bag:)

An evening with local IofC team and their friends was our first big presentation of ourselves and a later turned out as a great discussion between several generations and people, sharing our visions and understanding of our common future and questioning of "what actually IS Europe today".

We have had an opportunity to visit also Swedish parlament and meet with a MP. It was very interesting experience, as it is not so usual when you can have this kind of opportunity.

We also could visit a very famous highschool in Sigtuna -Humanistiska Läroverket and interact with some students there, having as our host Nik Dahlström.

The continuation comming soon! :)

Ulla

see you in a few hours!!!

Hey guys! will see you all again in a few hours, ah! :)

After six days I spent at home I'll be joining Action for Europe folks again, now - already in Oslo.

Time here in Latvia has been a bit sad because I feel that I jumped out for a while from AfE life, a bit crazy because I love Latvia so much at this season, late night swiming, blossoming lilac, even my duties and most of all - those crazy people I'm among.
And this time has been valuable in terms of possibility for a longer silence and possibility to realize how much I really feel a part of the team, a part of the idea!

Anna, Ulla, Marielle and everybody everybody who has helped to this idea to grow - muchos gracias!

All my love and see U soon,
Ilze

Pics from Latvian team - we here are getting ready for the Action!