CMV visits Poland

Last April, from the 19th till the 23rd, our year 2 CMV students went on a study trip to Poland, to Jelenia Góra to be precise. Some year 3 and year 4 students joined them on the trip. As we have a bilateral agreement with the local university, Kolegium Karkonosze, we had also arranged a meeting between the Polish and the Dutch students, which was for all involved fun and educational at the same time.
On the one hand a number of cultural and social organisations were visited, such as an arts centre, the cultural centre, an ecological foundation, a day care centre providing art therapy for mentally handicapped people and a police station.
On the other hand, much effort had been put into arranging meetings between Dutch and Polish students where they could get to know each other. In order to let them work together students were split up into mixed sub groups of four to work on a number of assignments, such as interviewing a relative of the students' family.
The Jelenia Gora region, called Silesia, was hit by massive ethnic cleansing after world war II. By interviewing family members students automatically touched upon the topic of migration, a familiar issue for people from Rotterdam.
Last but not least, there was also a cultural programme. The beautiful Grodziec castle (dating back to 1155) was the venue where it all took place. To sample the atmosphere, just have a look at some of the pictures.

On one of the last days, a visit was paid to Wroclaw, the capital of Silesia. Some of the Polish students from Kolegium Karkonosze were willing to be our guides and showed us the museum island, the panorama of the battle of Racławice and the magnificent Rynek, Polish for the Main Square.
There was terrific cooperation on the part of Kolegium Karkonosze and its students. But we also got terrific cooperation from all the organisations we visited. The Poles know what it means to be great hosts and the Dutch were pleasant guests.
We intend to organise this study trip for all our year 2 students on an annual basis. Here some more pictures of the trip that was accompanied by Han Bakker, Hilde Koops and Hans Donders.