Before It is OK!: our pre-project meeting
Our participants for It is OK! are confirmed. One evening in August, before anyone travelled to Austria, fourteen of us met online. We went through the programme day by day, put faces to the names on our list, and answered the questions that email never quite resolves.
The graphic we shared after the call.
Fourteen people, six countries, one evening
By then the selection was finished and the group was complete, so the call was not about who would be coming. It was about what the week would be like. We talked through the programme, the practical side of travelling to Tauchen, and what people hoped to gain from the nine days. We also shared the SNJKU website on screen, so that everyone knew where to find the project pages.
Most of the group had never met before. One video call does not turn strangers into friends, but it does mean that nobody will walk into the Blue Whale Education Center on the first evening without recognising a single face.
The pre-project call, held online in August.
Nine days, mapped out
The heart of the meeting was the timetable. The exchange runs from 17 to 25 August: people arrive on the first day and are welcomed that evening, everyone leaves on the last morning, and seven full days sit in between.
The shape of a day
Every full day follows the same pattern, which makes the week easy to settle into once you are there.
Morning
Breakfast runs from 8:30 to 9:30. The first session begins at 10:00 and opens with an energiser, which is the polite word for whatever gets a room of sleepy people onto their feet.
Midday
A coffee break at 11:30, a second session at 12:00, then lunch from 13:00 to 15:00. The long midday break is deliberate, and Tauchen is a good place for a walk.
Afternoon
A session at 15:00, coffee at 16:30, then a final session at 17:00. The longer workshops belong here, because they need time to find their shape.
Evening
Reflection time from 18:00 to 19:00, in small teams, with a separate slot for the group leaders. Dinner at 19:00. The evening programme runs from 21:00 until 23:00.
What fills the days
The first full day is set aside for getting to know each other. House rules, Human Bingo, a clock dating game and a marshmallow tower fill the sessions, and Secret Friend begins, a game that then continues quietly for the rest of the week.
From the second day onwards the sessions go deeper. A World Café invites everyone to talk about where they come from, Who Am I? Identity Mapping follows, and each person writes a letter to themselves. There is a workshop on resilience and healthy habits that moves outdoors for part of the time, a blindfolded walk that depends on trusting whoever is leading you, and a privilege walk in which people step forward or stay where they are. Drawing, theatre, music, yoga and a photography workshop sit between the more demanding sessions, because nine days of nothing but talking about feelings would be a lot to ask of anyone.
Two evenings are Cultural Nights, with three countries presenting at each: Türkiye, Spain and Czechia on the first, Austria, Poland and Italy on the second. Saturday belongs to Oscar Night. The films are shot and edited during the day, then screened after dinner.
The last two days turn towards what people will take home with them. There is a Youthpass Lab, a session on future vision and commitments, an evaluation, and finally the Secret Friend reveal.
A plan, not a script
A timetable this full is a starting point rather than a promise. Sessions overrun, workshops get swapped, and the reflection hour at the end of each day exists partly so that the group can say what is working and what is not. The plan we went through that evening is simply where we started.
What the exchange produced
The exchange has since taken place. The card design sessions on the Friday and Saturday became OKXIT, a storytelling deck of 46 cards that the group drew during the week. You can read how it was made, browse the deck, or print your own set.
If you have questions about It is OK!, or you would like to join a future project, write to office@snjku.com.
Project 2025-3-AT01-KA152-YOU-000384735. Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are those of the authors only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency. Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.