YE Bridges, Not Walls
The Youth Exchange (YE) part of project ‘Bridges, Not Walls’ happened between 20th and 29th of April 2026 at an idyllic rural retreat near rural Lithuanian village Luoba.
The goal of the project was to learn how to build bridges, meaning connect with people and their unique situations, create understanding and build empathy skills.
The project was done with non-formal education in mind. Each participating team prepared an activity to teach the other participants about a specific topic which they chose that they were experts on.
The participants took the preparation of activities seriously and each one of the activities was full of signal and information that taught us topics from active listening, identity discussion and all the way up to debating of social media effects.
The activities were part theory and part practice so the participants could immediately start trying out the new knowledge or techniques they learned.
The participanting countries were Slovakia, Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Romania, Lithuania. A very eastern European project but we believe it made our experience more special and unique.
The project took place in Lithuanian countryside at a beautiful location which also gets used as wedding venue when it is not hosting Erasmus youngsters. The venue had an artificial lake, gorgeous and vast nature. The rooms were comfortable with double beds for each participant so everyone had a lot of space to sleep.
Opinion of participants:
The most memorable moments for most of us were the Cultural Nights when each country prepared a dinner and cultural presentation full of traditional dances, food and history. The Slovak Cultural night was especially memorable since we worked extra hard to include dinner practices of Slovak Christmas and Slovak traditions. We prepared burning of Morena, traditional Slovak dance and signing performance. Our presentation was full or all the information that makes Slovakia interesting and unique country to us.
Overall I his project was an amazing experience and we are sure everyone will remember it for a long time and think about it with positive thoughts anytime they remember.