Communication paves a way to solidarity

“At first we were quite unsure what to do”, Jožica, a teacher at High School Velenje told us when we arrived to film their community action. “We always have a feeling that we are a lone in our problems, but in the end, we can’t make a difference alone. Through all these activities we realized that even a small contribution is important so that it can be seen that the students have grown with this project, even the poster we hung in the hall says 'We grow together'”.

Jožica and her students in the 3rd year of high school have decided that after two years of epidemic, good communication habits between people were lost. So, it was time to revive them. Aside from writing solidarity postcards, they decided to organize a workshop for entire school about communication skills; moreover, they searched for positive and nice thoughts, printed them and pasted them on stairs all around the school.

One of the students Gal emphasized that they decided for this sort of action because it “is not a problem of the future, it is a problem we see here and now, and we felt capable and competent to do something about it”. They tried to accomplish three things with this action: “first, good thoughts on the stairs greet you, even if that day nobody greeted you, the thoughts do. Second, they remind you that you are entering an institution that is there for you, that wants to help you. And third, since we all just came out of epidemic, we organized a workshop about communication in order to revive relaxed and spontaneous communication habits.”

Student Eva underlined that she thinks they “achieved some positive things with the campaign. The question we asked ourselves before we started was how could we get people to be more solidary and be better people. I think what we created is very beautiful, we pasted beautiful thoughts on the school staircase and it is memorable that solidarity is not only about collecting money but that we can brighten someone’s day with just a smile.”