STORIES FROM EUROPE

Jessica
Teacher, Aginsk Gymnasium
Russia
PTPI School and Classroom Program

As a teacher, it's been rewarding to take my students out of the old textbooks they usually study from and to help them learn English from those who know it best - residents of English-speaking countries. I'm also very impressed that our partner students and teachers in America and Australia are interested in learning about Siberia, an oft-ignored part of the world. I think our students’ exchanges are dismantling stereotypes from all sides and taking an important step towards global understanding.

Aleksei
President, Estonia Youth Chapter
Estonia
People to People International

PTPI’s Global Youth Forum and Homestays in US PTPI Chapters before the Forum were a great event for me. It was chance to meet many American people, to speak with them, to share our views and to act together with American kids in the Care Bags project to send humanitarian supplies to Cuba. Now I can tell to young people in Estonia about life and people in America. It is very important to share my good experiences when many people in Europe think negatively about America. People have to meet people from other countries and cultures to help each other understand differences and to find positive ways to enrich personal life and our world. I am sure, if we will know each other better we can do a lot of good things around the world.
We started PTP Estonia Youth Chapter after the Forum and organize winter camp to discuss, what we can do in Estonia for young people. We decided to learn more and debate about EU and NATO because Estonia will be a member of this organization in 2004. We discuss AIDS problems in our country and in the world; we learn English and meet people from other countries. I hope, step by step we can make positive changes locally and globally if we will speak and act together as we did during the Global Youth Forum in Kansas City.

High School of Natural Sciences
Varna, Bulgaria
Balkan Voices Project (i-EARN)

Hello friends: I am a computer science teacher at the High School of Natural Sciences - Varna Bulgaria. I am currently working on a proposal for a new project - Global Dictionary. I believe that it would be a good idea to have a small phrase book with words, such as 'hello', 'home', 'friend' etc, written in all the languages around the world. Last year our school took part in the Balkan Voices project and did a computer online dictionary which included different short phrasebooks in balkan and other European languages. It is published on http://dictionary.anteni.com/bdictionary The participants from the different countries were interest.