For the preparation we, the German group, will need at least two school semesters, before we could start the big journey. Our first www-meeting took place in March 2015 in our school called Petrischule. From then on we met regulary once a week during school time. We had a lot to do and after a short getting-to-know each other phase we started to gather ideas for our youth exchange. In this time we discussed our expectations, motivations and fears as well. We realized that we had to talk a lot about these topics and the best way to do that was during common activities, which we did at a later time. It became difficult when we tried to agree on a country. We already had chosen some favorites and we needed to agree on our final favorite destination. We realized quickly that we all shared an interest in food and at the end of the discussion the majority of our group wanted to go to Italy.
We organized a picnic with other kids from Borna at the Leipzig Wildpark to get to know each other and to talk about different tastes and foods around the world. After a few meetings where we talked about the application, the planning and the organization we made a pause for the sommer vacations 2015. In September we started again with the preparation-phase, where we developed an international project with a financial plan and searched for a suitable partner for the international youth exchange in Italy. Besides the planning and the preparations, we made a couple of excursions in the group. We went ice-skating together and met with other young refugees to talk about foods around the world. Most of the time we spent planning, creating ideas and everything else we needed to do for the exchange. And then the preparations were finished and we could start. And last but not least: Shortly before the exchange we made a short Italien course with Giovanni from Sicily.