Cultural Vehicles in Education - assisting the needs of vulnerable social groups

Life Together

Presentation in public

I A description of the activities undertaken during the unit, including comments on the reactions of the group/individual participants

a. Early morning we visited the participants at the location where they live and informed them about the details regarding the upcoming day
b. However nervous the participants were, they managed to keep up cheerful spirit. Since they did not want to be embarrassed in public they, asked for rehearsal of the songs, which they were supposed to present in the bus. Beforehand, they chose one of the scenes from the developed story to perform in Poland. Due to the fact that we did not know the town Bielsko Biala we had little harder time finding the place and barely made it for the presentation of our organisation. Accordingly, we did not have chance to set up our musical instruments. Unfortunately, musical interpretation failed because of the guitar mistuning. Nevertheless, the singer Anicka H. perfectly managed the situation anyway and sang two songs without the accompaniment. Afterwards we presented our dance part, which was already without any mistake. The presentation was so successful that we were asked to perform one more time the entire group at once. We agreed and the people around were having a good time and were even moving in the dance rhythm. After our performance we watched and enjoyed other groups presented and did little bit of sightseeing for the beauties of the town . Our participants attracted the photographers who were taking their pictures in the garbs that characterised Roma culture and belonged to the outfit of our performers. Some of our participants even gave and interview to the photographers. In the early evening we were travelling back home.
c. The participants scheduled another meeting for May 29th.

II Was the aim of the unit achieved (the implementation of practical skills and the pedagogical aim)?

The event was definitely a great success and huge improvement. The participants with the help of musical elements expressed themselves with real enthusiasm in the wide public.
The success they had with the program helped improve the self-esteem of the participants and remove restraints. The participants started enjoying the public presentation, especially the positive feedback rewarding their effort.

III Other remarks (for example on the interaction between artistic and educational elements)

It would be practically impossible to determine this event as artistic or educational because these two features went hand in hand. The participants showed the artistic abilities they had learned, meaning singing and dancing and at the same time they were learning many things. The great contribution to them was learning to present themselves in public, overcoming the stress and restraints. Another very important thing they learned was many important information abou other cultures... The were able to se polish traditions and the way of lif...
Everybody very much enjoyed this experience and even weeks after they remembered many things about Bielsko Biala and Polish lifestyle...