This is a video summary of the week spent with our Polish friends here in Manresa on our joined project on Democracy and the arts.

Monday 13th of January 2025 - Our guests from Poland arrived last night. And this morning, as customary, we have started this Mobility hosting in Manresa with the welcome events.

We started this morning with the welcome ceremony. We had beautiful musical performances, we had the formal welcome speeches, and we introduced the main topic of this exchange. Furthermore, we even had time for a taste of Catalan popular traditions: the giants.

After the welcome event, we took the Polish students and teachers for a tour around the school, and we finished the tour with a lovely snack with some local specialities.

The next activity was a fun ice breaking competition. International teams had a list of challenges that they had to overcome in a limited time. Each challenge had a specific number of points. After the time finished, we counted the number of points of each team, and we had a winning team. It was really good fun!

After that, it was time to start working on our topic: Creative Democracy. We went through a presentation to understand the two outcomes planned for this week, and we started working on the first one. The Model United Nations (MUN). A simulation of a UN General Assembly meeting to discuss the challenges of the arts and democracy in the world we live in. We had time to get information on our assigned countries to prepare for Tuesday’s MUN meeting.

After lunch, we engaged on a very fun game to explore, with our Polish friends, our town Manresa. We had to find a missing treasure through working out a set of puzzles hidden in certain parts of the town. We had a great time!

Tuesday 14th of January 2025 - The second day has been very intense. We have celebrated our Model United Nations General Assembly meeting. 

We met at 8 o’clock in Joan Amades Community Centre, as the premises there are more suitable for this type of event.

Anna Crespo, was our guest speaker. She told us about her work in the promotion of the arts and her experience as a councillor for Culture and the Arts in Manresa’s town hall. Her speech was a real inspiration to kick off our MUN meeting.

The MUN meeting agenda was very tight, so we in our assigned teams representing 15 different countries, we started preparing our initial speech. We had to outline how our respective countries were tackling topics such us: Freedom of speech, misinformation and social media, the role of education to promote the arts, the importance of giving voice through the arts to underrepresented groups, etc.

Each country had 4 minutes for their initial speech. Teams had to listen carefully to the other countries/teams with the aim to find allies, whom they can work in a similar direction regarding the topics discussed.

After all the countries/teams had delivered their initial speeches. We had a nice break.

Teams started to work on their second speeches after that. They had to identify what countries could work together and with similar priorities and interests. They then delivered their second speeches. 

At the end of all speeches, the MUN Chair divided the 15 countries into 2 blocks, which had to come up with final resolutions: proposals or objectives to commit to. The two teams gave their final resolutions to the Chair, and countries voted what resolutions were the most important.

Three students acted as members of the press, and they are going to elaborate a Manifesto.

Wednesday 15th of January 2025 - Today we have spent the day showing Barcelona to our friends from Poland.

We met at the station at 8 o'clock to travel to Barcelona by train. We arrived at Barcelona before 10, and we got organised to start the activity to explore the historic centre of the city. In teams, we had a set of challenges to accomplish, such as taking photos of one of the cathedral’s gargoyles, recording the music of a busker, etc. It was great fun, and the weather was perfect!

We all met at the entrance of Ciutadella Park to eat together. After lunch, we had some free time to walk around the old district’s shops and cafés. 

At 4 o’clock, we all met at the train station in Plaça Catalunya to return to Manresa. We had a lovely day in Barcelona!

Thursday 16th of January 2025 - After a relaxing day in Barcelona yesterday, today it was time to return to our topic this week: how creativity and the arts can challenge democracy and how democracy can empower the arts.

The first activity this morning was the pre-mobility presentations. Both schools presented the work done in their respective schools on the topic of democratic values and the arts. We have presented the books we’ve read, the debates we have had and the projects we have worked on, before meeting for this week’s mobility in Manresa.

After the presentations, we started the second part of this week’s learning objective: the collaborative mural.

The aim is to create a mural from the Manifesto drawn at the end of the Model United Nations simulation done last Tuesday.  The Manifesto was read, and then in international groups, we started to graphically sketch our interpretation of the ideas in the Manifesto. Teams had to work with other teams to make sure that all parts of the mural will fit together tomorrow.

After lunch, we walked to the train station to go to Montserrat. This beautiful mountain is the most impressive landmark of our region, and we are always very proud to show it to other schools. In Montserrat, we had two activities; one was to unscramble a set of pieces of text to learn lots of facts and curiosities about the mountain. The second was a set of challenges to do around the visitors’ area, such us finding a set of coordinates, count steps and take some photos. It was great fun!

At dusk, we returned to Manresa taking the rack train down the mountain.

Friday 17th of January 2025 - Today has been the last day of our mobility here in Manresa, hosting our Polish friends. 

We started the morning finishing our collaborative mural, we had to finish painting, cutting and gluing. At around 11 o'clock, most teams had finished their part of the mural and we took a break. 

After the break, we put all the parts up on the wall. We finally could see the finished mural. It was time to prepare our presentations. We knew that, Anna Crespo, the guest speaker that came on Monday to the UN Assembly simulation, would come to see the work done. We wanted to tell her about the creative process we had gone through, from the Manifesto reading to the execution and display of our mural. 

We welcomed Anna, and each group told her about the idea they wanted to express after reading the Manifesto, and how did they go on executing the idea. After all groups had presented, Anna gave a beautiful speech touching on the ideas expressed in the manifesto and the mural. She contextualized these ideas with the global issues the world is facing at present. Her speech was the perfect conclusion to a programme of activities which has made us think differently about the arts and the democratic values we sometimes take for granted.

We all had lunch at home with the families, as we knew we would meet up at school in the evening for the farewell party. We had a great time at the party, families brought lovely food, and we enjoyed ourselves a lot. Of course, we gave our Polish students their certificates too. We are looking forward to seeing them again in Poland next March.