| EU leaders' conference |
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Friday started with John Allan (a professor and trainer from Exeter, UK) presenting six critical issues that are influencing young people today. Cathy Faber, our cross-cultural trainer, led an interesting session on ethnocentrism. After lunch we went into small groups to brainstorm about the walls and bridges of Walltown. Henk Reitsema, from l 'Abri Netherlands, ended the day with the film As it is in Heaven and a follow-up discussion. Saturday morning we recapped the small group discussions of the six issues and John Allan introduced the topic "Young people and the church in Europe today". After a too-short discussion, we broke up and the participants went to local Dutch families for a sightseeing afternoon and church visit on Sunday. Sunday we just had time to share our hosting and church experiences and summarise the seminar before people had to start leaving for the airport. This was a great opportunity to meet old and new partners and talk about how we can work together to develop bridgebuilding in Europe. Just sharing ideas and information and meeting each other made the weekend successful! With so many talented youth worders, experienced trainers and interesting topics, we had too little time to finish every topic and conversation, but this was a great beginning for future partnerships. |
From 19-23 August, we hosted 20 youth leaders and workers from around Europe for a partnership-building seminar. The theme of the long weekend was "Building Partners for a Local Impact", two goals important to Atlantic Bridge and the European Commission.