After the Youth Exchange that took place in Jerusalem earlier this year, between 1st and 11th of March, to be precise, now we are meeting again. Only this time we are in another playground.

The pulse of Europe, rich in history and full of cultural diversity and simply a place to be – Berlin!

So we gathered here on 29th of April to continue with our project Music for Human Rights. We are very happy to see familiar faces but also to welcome some new ones. Freshly new ideas and skills are always more than welcome when it comes to exploring new ways, methodologies and approaches to topics of Human Rights through music, art and intercultural learning.

This time the hosting organisation UG Roter Baum Berlin welcomed more than 40 participants and artists coming from Germany, Israel, Italy, Portugal and Serbia. After the arrival and settlement of the participants, the DiveRcity crew of International Youth Centre Anna Landsberger prepared a small welcoming party in Anna with warm meals, cold drinks and a DJ stage.

30th of April marked the beginning of this lovely journey. Throughout nice and very amusing game of making a Collective Portraits we got a chance to break the ice and get to know each other a bit better. After we learned each others names successfully… almost, we continued with sharing and learning about the countries in which we were born, in which we are currently living, but also about the ones in which we would like to live one day. In the last category, Portugal won, because most of the participants want to live there with an exception of one Portuguese guy who would like to live in Serbia ( WTF ?!!! ) Now we saw it all.

Afternoon session was reserved for What?-Why?-Where?-How? Youthpass Workshop. Thanks to Tihomir Velikinac  now we know all about it … finally.

During the evening we had a very creative and interesting Musical Landfill Session with recycled but also unusual and kids instruments

Exhausted but happy participants went for a beauty sleep anticipating the next day.

1st of May was reserved for getting to know more about the topic of this ones music exchange. Refugee and migrant movements to be precise. How we did it? (Methodology link here). Well, with strong desire and not so strong acting skills but, nevertheless, it was done. It led to a quite interesting, open minded and constructive discussion on the topic which lasted more than two hours.

Fully energised, participants went on to explore streets and corners of Berlin and to join the collective International Workers Day celebration. It was more than amazing to experience such amount of diversity happening on the same place at the same time. The energy and atmosphere were vibrant and more than inspiring. The fact that music really connects people we have proven all over again with jumping in and joining an open jam session in Görlitzer Park.

Well what else can we say than – we think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendshipS so stay tuned guys!!!