Rūta Naujokaitė

How do I feel after Comenius project?

 

by Rūta Naujokaitė (Lithuania)

 

About two years ago, when the Comenius project started I often can hear the phrase we are all different. I agree with this. Religion, race, belief are the main things that differ us. To find differences in each other is simple. In what ways are we similar then? If we have lots of different things and hobbies, it doesn’t mean, that we have nothing what we can talk about. We can share our hobbies and find things that join us. 

Lots of questions arose to me when I heard about the project with this topic. For example: why do we need it? Which countries are involved? Do they like Lithuania? What is tolerance? Now I know answers to my questions. Tolerance is one of some reasons why we respect others’ choices and opinion. When we find common things, it becomes not important what our differences are. Everyone likes various books, movies, music and you can talk about it with everyone. I understand that human’s appearance isn’t the most important thing and you can’t judge them by it. 

I heard foreigners talking that the Lithuanians are unfriendly, intolerant and angry. But my opinion changed when the visit in Lithuania took place. Our project friends told us that Lithuania is a very friendly country. They discussed that Lithuanians always smile as they pass by and tolerate that they are from the other country. They also said they liked the visit in Lithuania, even though our school is much smaller than in other countries.

  When we became familiar with other members of the project we found a common language. In discussions we realized that people have a lot in common. But there are also a lot of differences among us. Participating in this project we have learnt a lot about other countries. We also experienced that there are a lot same customs in different countries, not only different. One of the biggest advantages of the project for me was improving the English language skills. There were situations where I did not understand others, but putting huge efforts solved all problems. So this is a very good practice to improve the knowledge of English.

So the answer to the question what participation in the Comenius project gave me is easy. It gave me good lessons about tolerance, also lots of good memories and nice experience.