IB students get active with Budapest Bike Maffia
Last week two of our IB students, Epameinondas Tosounis (Nondas) and Illya Ovchar from Year 12 together with Ildiko Toth took part in an international forum in the European Youth Centre with Budapest Bike Maffia. Ildiko was invited to organise a Vitamin commando and lead a workshop on “The importance of volunteering in creative projects for social responsibility”.
Last week two of our IB students, Epameinondas Tosounis (Nondas) and Illya Ovchar from Year 12 together with Ildiko Toth took part in an international forum in the European Youth Centre with Budapest Bike Maffia. Ildiko was invited to organise a Vitamin commando and lead a workshop on “The importance of volunteering in creative projects for social responsibility”.
You can read our students' summaries below.
"The past week has been a very intense one in terms of helping and even leading some workshops for the Budapest Bike Maffia. On Tuesday our team demonstrated and took part in the preparation of sandwiches which were later delivered to people on the street and to a homeless shelter. Ten people took part in this. On the second day, Wednesday, was the workshop and we had many more people take part. The workshop kicked off with the Bike Maffia crew presenting the BBM and briefly explaining the idea behind the Maffia and why individuals join BBM. Then the participants were asked to answer a couple of straightforward but very philosophical questions. This was followed by a very intense discussion about those questions. The questions ranged from very simple quick ones to ones which didn't, in fact, have any answers but were very good debate topics. The group engaged in debate very well and the Bike Maffia representatives fuelled the debate by providing interesting and accurate facts. Overall I can personally say that I've learned a lot about homelessness around Europe and how the situation is in other countries. This experience has given me a lot to think about and some ideas for further voluntary activity."
Illya Ovchar
"Going to the European Youth Centre and taking part in the workshop was an amazing and life-changing experience. There were many people from many different countries (because of the Erasmus + programme) so it was very interesting to listen and cooperate with people from totally different backgrounds and different cultures to me. The positive feedback from the people was a catalyst to our workshop. It was very important for the attendees to understand the role of the Budapest Bike Maffia in Budapest and its effect on the homeless and once again we succeeded."
Epameinondas Tosounis