During two days the participants were dealing with their own identity and their attitude towards issues of diversity and otherness on the basis of their own experiences, personal reflection and discussions. Likewise the participants attained knowledge about the character of prejudice and the mechanism of discrimination. They exchanged their experiences with unequal treatment and developed a strategy to react on signs of discrimination.
The last section of the meeting was dedicated to the structure and methodology of an antidiscrimination training from the perspective of prospective trainers, which will result in an internal text book for their future work.
Karolina Kędziora, chairwoman of the Association for Antidiscrimination Law, gave a lecture on “Antidiscrimination law – discrimination and lobbying in employment”. The workshops were completed by the presentation of and discussion about the exceptional film “Niebieskoocy” (Blue Eyed) dealing with education on antidiscrimination. Finally the participants had a meeting with Krzysztof Czyżewski, founder of the centre Pogranicze.
Sejny
Town with 6000 inhabitants in the Suwałki Lake District near the border to Belarus, Lithuania and the Kaliningrad district. 30 % of the inhabitants are Lithuanians, who are autochtonous to the area. In Sejny the Lithuanian community runs a school with Lithuanian as language of instruction. Furthermore a Lithuanian consulate and a foundation with a “Lithuanian House” are situated here. The Old Believers, descendants of people, who escaped to Poland because of their prosecution by the tsaristic authorities , live in the surrounding area. The Jewish community (1000 inhabitants) was murdered by the Germans during the Second World War. Another group, who used to live in the area, were the Germans. Traces of Tatars, Karaimites, Roma, Belarusians and Ukrainians can also still be found.