Ahoj and hello from ahoj.info! Our project was initiated by Tandem, the coordination centres for German-Czech youth exchange. As part of the European Solidarity Corps, we commit to young people from Germany and the Czech Republic for one year. We would like to promote friendship and mutual understanding, as well as the confluence of the two neighbouring countries. Our workplaces are in the Tandem offices in Regensburg and Pilsen.
"The volunteer year has opened up new opportunities for me. I was able to try out and experience so many new things – this has really boosted my self-confidence. My experiences are now useful in my career path. It was simply a super push ahead for my life!"
Monika Suchá, 2022
As volunteers, we have two main tasks: on the one hand, we organise events for young people from Germany and the Czech Republic. On the other hand, we would like to get in touch with young people via social networks and give them insights into their neighbouring country.
During the year abroad, we organise two multi-day meetings for young people and young adults. We can choose the topics for these two events ourselves from the focus topics set by Tandem. This is great, because there are no limits to our imagination here and we can exploit our creativity fully. We can really talk about what interests us.
Social networks are a part of our lives. We provide interesting posts for you every week on Instagram and Facebook. We write about events we have attended or about our trips and experiences in our neighbouring country. Every year, however, we also look for new topics that will bring you closer to your neighbouring country, for example, funny things about the language or recipes typical to that country to try out.
Our volunteer service lasts one year (September to August). During this time, we participate in team meetings and help colleagues prepare their projects and events. We contribute our own ideas and are, therefore, an indispensable part of the Tandem team.
If you are interested in our work and want to become a volunteer member of the team, be sure to contact us!
The youth conference took place from 16 to 18 June 2023 at Nečtiny Castle near Pilsen. The event was attended by 20 young people from Germany and the Czech Republic. The conference was led by our volunteers Kateřina Louženská and Tom Wiegels. They were supported both during preparations and on site by Veronika Rybová, Kateřina Břendová, Stefanie Schütz and Lucie Kučerova.
The aim of the event was to sensitise the participants to the topic of political participation and to introduce them to a range of possibilities for political participation outside of elections. To this end, they participated in an input session and two workshops from external speakers.
Ondřej Kruťa, who reported on his involvement in the Czech High School Union, was invited as a speaker on the first day. Two different workshops were offered on Sunday: the Tandem employee and democracy trainer Ulrike Fügl looked at a range of possibilities for democratic decision-making with the participants. The second workshop was led by Renata Klanová and Petr Lebeda from Participace 21, who presented participants with different ways to participate through online consultations.
Tandem employee Kateřina Břendová also took the opportunity to exchange views with participants on their perspectives on the new focus of Tandem from 2024 onwards.
The 20th anniversary of the ahoj.info project was also celebrated at the youth conference. During their presentation about the ahoj.info project, the two volunteers also spoke about its long history and encouraged participants to also get involved in the form of voluntary service. As a highlight of this presentation, the participants were served a birthday cake in an ahoj.info design.
This video seminar from the ahoj.info team took place from 3 to 5 March 2023 at the Waldmünchen Youth Education Centre. Our two volunteers Kateřina Louženská and Tom Wiegels developed a concept for the event together with the Youth Education Centre. The aim was to reflect together with the participants on their own use of social media and its effect on mental health and then to process the topics discussed artistically in a short film. The film equipment was provided by the Waldmünchen Youth Education Centre.
A total of 28 participants from Germany and the Czech Republic produced five short films on this topic this weekend.
The different approaches of the young people to the topic could be seen in the form of the end products. The videos show the negative effects that excessive use of social media can have on mental health in a range of ways. However, the representations of this theme, as well as whether and how the conflicts shown are resolved, are different in every short film. So, in one film you see a realistic scenario that is then ironically broken, while another film, which shows a situation that is exaggerated from the start, asks as a thought experiment what would happen if mobile phones disappeared overnight. Others simply represent the problems that the characters encounter due to their social media use – sometimes with a resolution at the end.
The content of the event was divided into two parts: on Friday and Saturday morning, the participants dealt with their own use of social media and its effects, which they themselves noticed in everyday life. We continued on Saturday morning with the first small group work, in which the participants were asked to develop solutions to the problems discussed earlier. As part of a World Café, they dealt with a hypothetical scenario and were asked to look at it from different perspectives.
After a brief introduction to the technology by Jürgen Riedel, Media Education Officer at the Waldmünchen Youth Education Centre, the participants started their video production in small groups.
On Sunday, the event concluded with the presentation of all of the short films and a subsequent reflection on them. As can be seen from the evaluation, the short films and the high number of participants, the event was a complete success. It turned out that the event was one of the first contacts with their neighbouring country for many and new German-Czech contacts were able to be made.
