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International
Organisation of Youth with Rheumatism
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IYC 1996 - Denmark
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| by Markéta Fostíková and Monika Kratinová, Czech Republic Denmark - meeting with some foreign people coming from foreign countries, speaking foreign languages and maybe thinking in a foreign way and wishing to stay foreign even in the future. The beginning - we become acquainted with organisers and participants. Only carefully do we enter into limited relations. For example, someone helps us with opening the door, when they see that we are at a loss to open it ourselves. We can offer the same assistance to others - explaining an unknown word or passing the tea pot. You may say these are ordinary things, but for us it means that foreign faces are not so foreign any longer. Kalundborg - the place of meeting. We can see a conscious effort on both sides to make friends with each other. The programme begins - lectures, a lot of fun, walks, discussions, parties, the sea, the sun, trips... Our eyes slowly begin to open and understanding slowly begins to form in our heads, increasing as time goes on - well, all of us are the same, after all! It makes no difference whether we are ill or healthy, cheerful or sad, sleepy or we have had our beauty sleep. The positions of all of us are the same. All of us long to have someone that would love us, that would help us to get over those difficult barriers. At the same time we long to offer the same and even something more to anybody else. Simply said, we long both to be loved and to love unselfishly, but it is extremely difficult for us to confess our longings to ourselves and bringing them to life seems impossible. Nevertheless, a little step could be enough and at once we could feel better among other people. Well, our understanding has built up which has its roots in the International Congress of young people with rheumatism, where we tried to make greater relationships from little ones and where we learned how to change the foreign faces into the well known ones. Many thanks for giving us the opportunity to stay there .Published in Newsletter no. 2, June 1998 |