We ( C.Ledingham, Alex Hayton and Ruth Mallon) set off from Wigton at 8.30 on Saturday, 3rd of October, to attend the 11th FACE (Federation of Associations of young Citizens of Europe) meeting in Germany. Ten different European countries were going to be there, Portugal, Spain, France, Slovakia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Austria, Poland, Germany and us, the UK.
By the time we arrived in Manchester we had managed to chat almost non-stop which boded well for the trip. After a smooth journey to Zürich and on to Nürnberg we were picked up at the airport by “our” German, Leona who looked after us for the duration of the stay. The headmaster of the Sigmund Schuckert Gymnasium transported the entire luggage to the youth hostel and we took the underground. We had just about time to throw our suitcases into the 3 rooms (we were all in separate rooms) before setting off again, down a very steep hill, to the “Barfüßer”, a traditional restaurant. There we had a lovely meal and got to know the other teachers and pupils a bit. 10 different countries, 60 young people and 14 delegation leaders, what a racket!On Saturday we had to be up and ready to go in our best clothes as we were attending a very prestigious ceremony, The Nuremberg International Human Rights Award. All young adults behaved impeccably at this event and made their delegation leaders proud. The recipient of the award was Abdolfattah Soltani, a human rights lawyer. At the last minute, at the airport in Iran, Mr Soltani was arrested by the Iranian police and had his passport taken from him. This made the whole ceremony even more poignant.We then attended the “Peace Table”, a mile long table running through the centre of Nuremberg. Citizens of Nuremberg brought picnics and sat together, talking. It was a very impressive display!The rest of Sunday and all of Monday were spent at the Sigmund Schuckert Gymnasium, preparing presentations in 4 different workshops and listening to some very interesting people speak about their work. Theo van Boven is a professor in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law and was a UN Special Rapporteur against Torture. We also heard the patron of FACE, Günter Gloser, headmaster Mr Sittauer and Mr Schatz from the “Movement for Human Dignity”.Monday night saw us all preparing the school hall for the “Auberge Espagnole”, a fantastic event, where every country presented some typical food for all to try. Tables were decorated in national colours and after some speeches we all tried everything! The evening finished with a disco and all 60 youngsters were now chatting and having an absolute ball!Tuesday morning (7.30 breakfast again!) everybody finished off their presentations and at 4pm we watched a brilliant performance of street theatre by one of the workshops. It was very moving and well executed.After getting changed into our finery we attended a very elegant closing ceremony at the historic town hall. All the workshops introduced their presentations and the event was attended by the mayor of Nuremberg, Mr Gloser and other dignitaries. . A superb buffet and dance finished off a truly momentous trip.The students made us all very, very proud and one could see how much they all benefitted from this fantastic experience. All were worthy ambassadors for their countries.
I think we all made some new friends and learned so much about Europe, European politics and European culture! We can’t wait to go to the next FACE meeting!
