success stories
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The JC Moment
My favorite Moment was at our open day and and my Mom, boyfriend, our chapter president and her son, and our friend Nancy came to see me and at the pot luck when we were eating, two of the Danish kids and a Mexican boy came over to our table and were talking to us. Then next thing I knew they where putting icing and cake on my face. It was so funny and I'll never forget that moment. Taylor Reese Jacobs
Village leader sharing their Village experience
(Ambra - Italian leader at Village in Prague, Czech Republic)
What does going to a village mean?
Since the moment they asked me to write this article I am thinking about an answer to this question, but I can’t find it.
I have been leader to villages for 3 summers in a row. I am considered a person with a lot of experience, but it’s hard for me to answer to such an easy question. How can I explain to people that have never experienced how intense is this totally unique programme? How can I explain the magic of meeting other cultures, reflect on your identity, the fact of realizing that the sterotypes we take as truth are just false? How can I write the emotion of singing during the lullabies, a song that you have always known and you don’ even like but that when you sing it together with the group in a big hug, it tastes totally different and when you come back every time you listen to it you start crying? How can I write in a few lines how you build such tight bonds in a CISV village with people so different, so far away from your reality, so difficult to understand because of their different culture but that after a month they become brothers and sisters and their memory will stay in your heart forever even if you won’t see them again?
When I think about my CISV villages there is this cloud full of thoughts in my mind, a cloud full of memories and emotions I can’t give a name to. Every time when I come back to from a CISV village I think that no other CISV experience will be as beautiful as the one just experienced, but then every year is better. Every time is a different experience, every time the people and the mix of cultures are different, every time the doubts and the fears are the same. Every time it is as if it’s the first time and I am surprised about how much I get to learn every year even if I do the same activities and there is the same daily schedule, flag time and lullabies.
And the thing that surprises me the most is that I learn from 11 year old kids, those kids that give sense to all the work of staff leaders and jcs.
This year the kids of my delegation really grow up during the village because we faced together some difficult situations. It was not easy to live together, we were not always getting along but when we opened our hearts and shared what we really thought about one another everything changed...yes, it has been tough but it has been worth because it has been the first step to a wonderful path we went through together and that made us build the best group feeling that I experienced in a village delegation. The behavior of the kids made me often angry and frustrated but it also moved me because they have been caring of one other and contributing very much to the discussions after the activities…and I saw them growing up day after day. Even if it has been hard sometimes, I know they are coming back home with something that will help them relate differently with their lives from now on. The biggest challenge is to bring what you learn in a CISV village to your everyday life and do not see village and reality as two separate things and integrate the two. This is the main aim of CISV activities and I really believe we reached this goal this summer.
I will never forget the words of one my delegates carried in a tiny piece of paper ‘thank you for teaching me how to cry’.
Morever the help, the advices, the support that all the leaders, jcs and staff gave me were very important. I really felt involved in a group where we could share our troubles and find a solution all together, everybody contributed to solve the problems and encouraged me. There was really something magic in the group and I will be grateful forever to them!