Let's Talk

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in a student initiative called "Let's Talk". Their aim is to emphasize the importance of the English language in today's world, especially in schools which are in more rural areas. So I decided to join them during one of their visits and give a little presentation about Germany and answer some questions they had prepared for me.

Overall I must say I was amazed by the kids curiosity, and I have to admit that I expected differently from 14 year old teenagers.I know that this topic might not completely align with my earlier posts and the severity of the content but I think this visit is worth mentioning and reminding people how many of the problems we have today could be solved by an upcoming generation of international, well-educated and well-travelled young people. Just the fact one can talk the same language might have disolved the one or other misunderstanding which lead to a conflict with fatal casulties. After my experience in Ukraine I can only approve that.

This has only been one visit for me but I like to see the bigger picture in this and I am truely glad that there are so many young motivated students out here to take up responsibility for this idea. Also I feel like complementing the Polish government, from what I have seen in the last months, they are building and renovating schools for all ages and types of education everywhere in the country. They are definitely doing the right thing and the first results are already visible throughout the country. High-tech companies like Google, Philips or Volvo have their eastern Europe headquarters situated in Poland and benefit from a qualified and young labour force market. Also you can observe the increasing percentage of people in Poland who speak English and again it is the young people who make the difference. This has led to an exchange of thoughts, ideas and knowledge,
All this in a country that has been part of the Soviet Union and just developed this skill over the last 25 years. ( Of course now in the times of shifting territorial claims and an approaching Putin in the east you might have to reconsider switching the efforts back to Russian so the transition from Poland to the Soviet Unin 2.0 goes rather smoothly ;-) )

which for me build the basis of every free and democratic state as Poland strives to be.

Well, after all I just really wanted to share this experience because I think the "Let's Talk"  projects really do make a difference to avoid conflict and give populism and unilateral ideology no space to develope as it does right now in so many parts of this world. I know it is quiet an extensive picture I am drawing from this but maybe we forget some times how important small efforts are to generate big change. So thank you Lidia, Aneta, Agnieszka and Klaudia for inviting me and I hope "Let's Talk" keeps up the good work.