The Spanish Delegation at Bucharest Gara de Nord, at the same time...

...when the English Delegation just had a look at Sibiu waking up after their very early arrival in town.

Here is Dr. Holger Lux, the head of the Rehab Center, one of the few Saxon people still living in this area telling about his Center and about the Evangelic church, one of the fortified Saxon churches.

Here in Sura Mica and Rusciori the cooperation among the people is outstanding: the priest, the teachers, the head of school, the Mayor, the head of the rehab center, the doctor of the village, the team of the Kinderbauernhof are cooperating very well. They all use the brochure of our project, the picture book "Lily, Ben and Omid" and some of them the case "Lily, Ben and Omid". All of them are connected to other places where they need such support, therefore our outputs are disseminated to a care center for Roma people in Paris, to a home for theaf children in Sibiu, to a counseling center in Ploiesti. More than 130 books are just disseminated, a 2nd Edition will arrive in May with another 500 books, the brochures are printed and published on the website... Romania is very well on track with our project.

In Rusciori we visited the "Kinder Bauernhof", it is a Project of Ms Hermine Janga Roth, a Saxon Lady. She wanted to show children of Romanian towns how people live in the countryside. Her father lived in Rusciori and was a very proud craftman. Therefore Ms Janga Roth choosed this village. The Saxon Parish House was in a very bad shape, she renovated it with her team and this is now the center of her activities together with the old Saxon School nearby. Very quickly she realised that she can't do this project without focusing on the very poor Roma people who are living now in the former Saxon houses here in Rusciori which was called "Reussdörfchen" in former days. She changed her project into a project supporting this Roma people. After school they go to have lunch in the Parish House, they can play there in the free afternoon, they are helped doing their homework. Ms Janga Roth is cooperating very well with the school and other institutions and nowadays all the children from Rusciori go to school, what is absolutely an outstanding fact.

Here Ms Janga Roth is preparing the oven to make bread with children from town, which still is a part of the project. Learn more about Kinderbauernhof http://www.kinderbauernhof.org/kontakt.html

Ms Janga Roth lead some of the Group to the Saxon room of her Parish House. There she showed remainings of this Saxon time in Transsilvania which lasted for more than 850 years. When in 1991 the German government asked the Romanian Saxons to come back to Germany, most of them left their country. That meant to those who remained a big change in their life and of course the same for all those starting a new life in a completely new surrounding in Germany, very often confronted with stereotypes. Migration is always a big issue for all the persons involved.

The embroideries made by Saxon women are praising the patriotic Feelings:  "Siebenbürgen, süsse Heimat" - Transsilvania, sweet home.

And then Ms Janga Roth mentioned that there were a lot of Saxons joining the SS of Adolf Hitler, (Leibstandarte SS, protection squadron). The SS was mainly involved in killing jews, Romas and prisoners of war. She explained it with their state to live in an exclave, to have the wish to protect their language and culture for centuries against the influence of other cultures and their nationalism. She explained it but she didn't excuse it.

In these workshops the main topic was migration and why people are leaving their "safe places".

They presented their own migrational background to their colleagues.

They cooperated to build something, they came along to build a castle as a safe place and made once again the experience that  cooperation is very important.

The guides told us about two different areas in Europe, one in Norway on an Island where only fishers had their outcome. Young people were sent into town to study and there was more and more migration away from this place. Then the infrastructure got better, a new bridge connected the island with the mainland and immigration started. Today this place is flourishing attracts people from other countries and is in a good shape.

The other example is Poiana in Romania. It is a village where the people created spoons and other things for the daily business in Wood. Because of the use of plastic items, less people bought their handy crafted items and the village got poorer and poorer. People are leaving the village. But there is hope that migration can be stopped too one day like in Norway.

And of course the question "What is my safe place" is acompanying us through the whole Project. Here our students could write on the black board what for them the safe place is.

These are one of the newest houses rebuilt in the Museum. There are the buildings of a Roma family. The buildings are very basic because most of the Roma people didn't live for a long time there because they were/are travellers. The roof of the house is covered by grass a very simple but efficient method to protect it of heat and cold.

It's a good sign of integration that the museum covers more and more the houses of minorities, too.

This very old school is decorated with comunist symbols. The flags of the pioneers, the photos of the comunist leaders. The Romanian and Polish partners - especially the teachers - were confronted with hese difficult memories. The other partners were lucky not having lived in such circumstances.

The Workshops went on outside with games of integration and Mathematics.

Visit of a game factory.

Cistercian Monastery from Carta

Out in the nature.