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On a beautiful April Saturday, our group of nine high school students from Nitra embarked on a long train journey. Our destination was Rzeszów, Poland, where we participated in the Erasmus+ project "Zoom in, Zoom out". After eight hours of stretching our legs in the aisle, playing games, eating, and chatting, we arrived at our station. Fortunately, it wasn't far from there to the place where the project was held — the INPRO organization is located directly in the station building.
We got off the train, eager to meet the other participants from Hungary, Ukraine, and Poland, who were on a youth exchange with us. We started the project with dinner at a nearby restaurant, where we got to know each other a little. After the first impressions, however, we were only able to manage a shower and sleep, exhausted from the long journey.
During the first morning, we familiarized ourselves with the rules of the entire youth exchange and our stay in the hostel. We had fun with various team-building activities to get an overview of who we would be working with during the project. In the afternoon, a presentation on the work of a photographer awaited us, which helped us get a more precise idea of what the outcome of the project would be.
Right at the beginning of the second day, we learned something about the technical side of photography, compared digital and analog photos, and discussed what a photo actually means and what we can use it for. We analyzed some already taken photos and considered what they were trying to tell us. In teams, we took a few photos that had to meet certain parameters. We then presented these photos to each other and shared our thought processes. In the afternoon, we had the chance to see a bit of Rzeszów through an organized City Tour.
On Tuesday evening, we also managed to attend an Intercultural Night, where we presented Slovakia to the others, and they, in turn, told us something new about their homeland. We laid out bryndza, peanut puffs, Hašlerky, and parenica... And we found out that they tasted mostly good to us, and also that we have better cuisine than other countries ;).
On Wednesday, after many words, it was time for action – we took our phones and cameras and tried to take the best and most impressive shots, which we were later to present at the vernissage. We spent the whole day taking and editing photos, and at the same time exploring Rzeszów. In the evening, we went to see the Open Café event, organized by volunteers from the INPRO organization, which this time focused on environmental issues. We thus had the chance to discuss not only among ourselves but also with local students.
We dedicated all of Thursday to the vernissage, which was actually the output of the whole week. We framed our photos, moved them to the building where the vernissage was held, and presented our work to visitors. We explained what we wanted to say with the photo, what we wanted to draw attention to. We tried to stick to one of the main themes of the UN Sustainable Development Plan, which, in our judgment, we succeeded in doing.
We spent the last morning touring the Piwnice, the cellars under the city. The beautifully renovated spaces were presented to us by a guide during an almost two-hour tour. After this activity, only the final evaluation of the project and farewell awaited us.
The journey back was much more protracted, as the railways again (dis)appointed, the carriages were not connected for us, trains did not wait for each other, and those that by chance did wait were delayed. In the end, however, we arrived home healthy, tired, a little wiser, and full of experiences.
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