By Mafalda Silva and Kitti Szabo, Poverty Activist August team 2022
Mafalda: An amazing experience.... I will do my best to be back at the OL 2023!!!
I participated in the Olympic Games (OL) event in Tvind and for me it was a highlight to be part of it - especially to see the happiness of all of the 500 students and the motivation of CICD Team and all the OL Team, providing the best experience the students could have! And we succeded on it! :) All of the students were really happy and had a good time!
Also, I was able to visit Denmark for the first time, other sister schools like Holsted and Soogardus, get to know a lot of beautiful and motivated people connected to the organisation and the participant students… oh!!!! The smile on their faces and the way they were enjoying participate on the activities as sharing good moments between themselves!
It worth it all the tiredness and some hours of travelling without sleeping!
During the preparations, I was sharing the responsibilities with Charly, a 1st year DNS teacher in Tvind, for the Open and Closing ceremony. This mainly consisted of -preparing their arrival - Welcoming all the participants – the students and the Teachers - uniting them into School Units (2 or 3 Schools together); dancing with disguises and entertaining at the Welcome Party at the Football field; march with them, following the TuK Tuk car and the Fire Torches from the football field to the inside of the Sports Hall and there, with specific motivating coreography – “We will Rock You” gave them the good motivation to start!!
How Everyone can be a Winner!
On all of the 74 disciplines (activities) available, from sports activities that can be individual – stigegolf or pushing physically a car with a rope; or in teams – table tennis or volleyball; or for the ones that are not that sports enthusiastic, they also had activities like chess or street art drawing. All of the students could participate by subscribing themselves with the instructor responsible for that activity and enjoy!!
The highest points for the School Units wins a Poster with some photos from their participation on the activities and a Trophy.
The best for me about this point system is that there are also Medals for everyone! Categories like: The most fair play participant, the most helpul participant, are skills that are also considered in the point system and during the 2 days of the event, that are contemplated by the eyes of the Instructors from each discipline. This way, the Organisation, make sure that all of the particpants have a medal!!
Mainly I have to say that it was an amazing experience for me. I could understand in a pratical way, the main purpose of being Another Kind of School. In my personal way, I was feeling really good with the positive atmosphere from all of the people involved in the event and the will of focusing always on the solutions during all the process of preparing the event, as the 2 days of the event itself. I will do my best to be at the OL 2023!!! It´s a promise!!
Kitti: This challenge has made us a stonger team
Dear Reader!
Recently, our team visited our sister school, namely DNS International Teacher Training College, where we participated in the organisation of the Tvind Olympics.
What does it mean that we are talking about the Olympics and yet everyone is a winner?!
It's very simple, there is no discrimination! Here, the participants can enjoy the programmes in such a way that they can also gain personal success, but at the same time, the main profile is not competition, so it creates the feeling that there is no better or worse result.
My team and I left our handprints in every part - from the opening ceremony, the organisation of the sports, the procurement of the necessary equipment to the closing ceremony.
Among the new challenges: Finding the shop without GPS :-)
I think that completing and reviewing these tasks revealed hidden abilities in us that would not come to light after years or never in our lives.
Such as: Planning individual responsibilities in such a way that they are connected with the other programmes to form a rounded whole…..Explain for the participants the rules of the game so that it is short, exciting and understandable…… Buying the appropriate tools from different stores (the latter was my task) …..And being able to work together.
My job was: to get everything we needed!
It was my responsibility to be aware of the products and tools that needed to be purchased from stores, covering the entire programme. It was funny for me and gave me a great experience to be able to get to different shops without a GPS in a foreign country where everything was written in Danish with my incomplete English - it encouraged me to reinvent myself - looking back, it added to the building of my self-confidence because first I didn't think I could do it.
I had a constant smile on my face, despite the late difficulties, because I saw that everyone used their maximum knowledge and participated with pleasure, from preparing 2,500 hamburgers to calculating the scoring systems.
We spent 10 unforgettable days because we gained enormous self-knowledge, had adventures and saw hundreds of smiles - I wouldn't trade it for anything! My circle of friends also expanded with many great people with whom we shared our experiences and held really exciting conversations.
Forging a strong team
I feel that our small team was forged better by the trip, the joint work and deeper conversations. It showed that we can count on each other, which gave more room for the development of trust - this is very important in a team. We were enriched by an event that had a great atmosphere, was instructive and provided a great experience. So I am very proud of them and everyone who participated because it would not have worked without them. It remains as a wonderful memory and I look forward to the next opportunity!