China is a big country with a huge population! Lots of speeches, lectures and articles about China start with this well-known statement. So what could one expect to learn about this country only spending two short weeks during summer vacation at a university campus located outside an ordinary industrial city in East China? What did 68 young people from 21 European and Asian countries have in mind when they applied to join an Asia-Europe Youth Camp in China with the objective to contribute to a huge national project aimed at protecting the environment and the cultural heritage in the area of the two "Mother Rivers", the Yellow River and the Yangtse River?

    We learned from the participants that they at least shared one expectation: getting to know China not by being a tourist, but by engaging in voluntary work together with young people from China and by this means learning about the culture and the country and establishing friendships. I think it is no understatement to say that these expectations were totally fulfilled. We experienced an atmosphere of mutual respect, care, openness and willingness to learn and understand throughout the entire camp! The proof for observers is an already vivid exchange of e-mails on the immediately created mailing list and web site, not to mention the private e-mails among the participants and staff.

    The distance between Asia and Europe is obviously far. For many of the participants it was the first time to join a camp with so many nationalities and for most of them it was their first time in China. Of course, many of them experienced a "culture-shock", but nobody had serious problems adjusting to this new environment. This was partly due to the supportive group-atmosphere and to a very large extent to the Chinese participants. They realized the need among the participants for explanations and help and also did not hesitate to join intense discussions about political, cultural and other interesting and often controversial topics.

    Naturally, being the focus of the camp, environmental protection was a heavily discussed topic. We had lectures on environmental problems in China, on the relationship between man and nature in Confucianism and we even talked briefly about the contributions of archeology to our understanding of the environmental situation in ancient times. Since environmental issues cover a broad range of topics and consist of very complex realities, it was impossible to offer a complete account of all the challenges, backgrounds and possible solutions related to the environment.

    We learned from the participants that they received a preliminary impression about the problems and would have liked to go into more detail to even better understand what can be done, and what is done on a national and international level to improve the state of the environment. But they also realized that their interest and engagement does not have to stop at the end of the camp. many expressed their interest and willingness to learn more about environmental protection or to get actively engaged in projects and organizations aimed at environmental protection. And even the fact that we did not plant as many trees as we planned to (due to heavy rain falls) has turned into a positive outcome: we received so much attention from the media and they took lots of photos of us digging holes for the trees that this must have caught the attention of the public. Through this we hope to have contributed to public environmental awareness in China. A TV team from a Shandong Province station followed us permanently for two weeks.

    Being a facilitator in this camp provided us with a lot of new and valuable experiences. During the camp we all realized that the size of the group was as much an advantage as a challenge, also in the light of limited time. The opportunity to get to know a lot of people with diverse backgrounds and learning about so many different cultures, which among other things found its expression in amazingly creative cultural parties, was a definite advantage! Concerning logistics, organization and group dynamics it was a clear challenge. That we still managed to get this huge group moving, being at the right places at almost the right time and still maintaining a group spirit owes to the organizational work and care of the organizers and staff from the All-China Youth Federation (ACYF) and the discipline of mainly the Chinese participants. Working together in a team consisting of staff from ACYF, ASEF and us facilitators provided a great opportunity to learn about each others experiences and priorities in guiding such an activity. There was a lot of learning by doing and watching and I think that we all picked up new ideas for our future work. At this point we would like to thank everybody, organizers and participants who have made this camp such a success! We support the Asia-Europe Youth Camp initiative and hope that a lot more young people from both regions will be given the opportunity to meet, learn from each other and pass on the experience in their home countries.

Indre Bermann, American Field Service (AFS), Germany
Jinsu Yom, Int'l Workcamp Organization (IWO), Korea
Roel Forceville, Youth Action for Peace (YAP), Belgium

© 2000-2001 TIM SCHROCK