Belonging

This is one of eight reflections from student UNESCO Ambassadors at Lyng Hall who were invited to the Cities of Remembrance symposium in Ypres and Dunkirk which took place from 20-27 May. An earlier blog describes the background in more detail and points to seven other reflections from the visit. This reflection covers the theme of belonging and Alicja writes:

Belonging

Feeling like I belonged. While we were in Dunkirk, we had the opportunity to listen to delegates from countries like Germany, Italy, Poland and even South Korea speak at a symposium with the topic being how to fight against far-right extremism and growing hate speech as well as how to protect the youth from it. After the symposium, we spent some time speaking to the delegates as well as explaining to them what we as ambassadors do together as a group. During these conversations, I realised what an honour it was to speak to these people. 

As a young person, I had noticed how not many people my age get involved with these sorts of activities. This made me feel like I belonged amongst all these people. We were the youngest people there and many of the dele-gates were willing to speak to us, find out who we were and find out why we chose to join this group. They also wanted to hear a younger person’s perspective and opinion on what was spoken about in the sym-posium. 

My experiences made me feel noticed and acknowledged amongst so many important people since younger people can sometimes get dis-missed by older people. The fact that we were able to speak to these people was a huge achievement in itself and the fact we were recog-nised was another achievement. The trip was absolutely amazing and I had so much fun while we were there. We explored many different monuments about the war and times of suffering that we got to reflect on. 

The photo shows Alicja talking to the Polish delegates at the conference