A lot has happened since the first get-together of German young people in July 2022. Face-to-face and online meetings have taken place and the first insights into the very different cultures have provided a lot to talk about on both sides. On October 1, 2022 the time had finally come – Ghana meets Germany to jointly develop an educational concept that should enable the children in Ghana to receive a high-quality education. Ten young people from Ghana visited Germany, got to know life in another country, finding out more about the different school system, dealing with each other, living together, exploring the German way of living and making new friends. Lisa Stöckel was there and reports on her very personal experience when she first met her new african friends and what next steps were taken together:

“On October 1st, 2022 it was time to welcome our exchange partners from Ghana! We were finally able to get to know each other in person. In the holiday village of Waldbrunn we welcomed them with open arms and were excited to see what the next few days would be like. In our first meeting we were taught a bit about each project so we were able to get to know each other way better. Due to the rainy weather, as well as the small but cozy accommodations, we literally all moved together quite quickly and realized immediately – something great can be created here. After two days together in Waldbrunn, we finally went to a new accommodation. We moved into our rooms in the Aktivwelt Külsheim and the first major highlight of the project week was our welcome event for the Ghanaians at the Beavers in Erlenbach. We arrived together, listened to the different musical performances of the evening and had a great time together. The very special program of the night was the premiere of a documentary film about the association work in Ghana. We were all whatching the big screen, beeing very excited. The emotional presentation (thanks to “Focus on you”) didn’t leave many eyes dry. Afterwards we all celebrated, danced and sang together and ended the evening in great company. There were many different tasks on the agenda over the next few days: a guided tour of Miltenberg, factory tours in the Oswald (Miltenberg) and Pahl weaving mills (Külsheim), a visit to the Pater Alois Grimm School (Külsheim), a stop over at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, as well as the project work – many varied activities in which we were all able to experience something new. After about a week, the Ghanaian participants finally went home with their exchange partners. The upcoming three days they lived in our homes, accompanied us to our jobs or schools and recieved an insight into our “ordinary” everyday life. It was really nice to show them new places, explain things to them and let them be part of our lives. After these days, we gathered in Külsheim to intensively continue working on our project work. We considered, planned and collected ideas for the implementation of our project in Ghana. For this we divided into small groups again, in order to work in the individual subject areas. Many creative ideas were already coming together and so we got closer and closer to our “school construction” project… After almost two weeks it was unfortunately “time to say goodbye” for everyone after these wonderful, productive days… You can imagine that saying goodbuy was very hard after such an intensive time together. But with the thought in mind that we will all meet again in April in Ghana and continue working on our project, it was not that difficult for us to let go. We enjoyed the last evening with a small farewell party. In the early hours of Saturday, October 16th. we finally said goodbye to our Ghanaian guests and are already looking forward seeing them again.