6:30 am
Last Party People arrive at the motel after enjoying Berlin club night.

8:00 am
Begin of the breakfast buffet. Yannick arrives at the motel (back from Berlin Party life).

8:45 am
The awake part of our group leaves the hotel in order to attend a service in the Berliner Dom. The Chinese most like the music.

9:30 am
Last alarms are ringing (room 400, 452 etc.)

10:00 am
Yanick desperately tries to animate the tired part of our group to join punctually the other part at the Berliner Dom.

10:45
Pushed up with coffee and tea and a really nice breakfast, we arrive at the Dom (on time) and spend our time taking photos.

11:30 am
Reunited we meet BM a.D. Irmgard Schwätzer with whom we talk about the governmental impact on voluntary work. Some impressions :
She tells us that the state has to play a role in the future concerning volunteering action and considering the unemployment and the demographic change. However the state cannot determine voluntary work (as it is voluntary). A problem is that because of the demographic change there are less young people working. Another point is the the increase of life expectation. There are at least 10 years between the moment the person gets retired and the moment the person needs medical care. During this period he or she can do voluntary work. The age of the population doing volunteering work will therefore increase. Moreover these persons have high work experience.

1:15 pm
Divided into trinational groups we are set free for a ralley. We are given 5€ and a DFJW/OFAJ plastic handbag. Today’s challenge is to swap the most marvelous plastic bag for something more precious. Yeah!

3:00 pm
After having Spätzle and Oma’s Landkuchen, we swarm out to complete our mission. Some group even manages to swap four times, we end up with a bear glass and are curious about what the others got. Mission complete!

7:00 pm
We have rendez-vous with Max&Moritz next to the Prinzessinenstraße. Enjoying very German food we talk about what we experienced today. Yannick denies being tired.

9:30 pm
See what the evening brings! Tomorrow will be a busy day and our last by the way…

This morning we left La Rocheton at 5 o’clock. We were just on time to take the plane to go to Berlin, after a breakfast to take away and small nap in the bus. Soon after our arrival we reach the “Motel one” were we put our luggage and went for lunch at the “Kantine Rotes Rathaus” which is a huge red old building downtown only 4 stops away from our hotel. So we sat down in a private room with the whole group and ate spaghettis “a la bolognaise”, particularly appreciated by the Chinese!
At 2 o’clock we arrived at the OFAJ where we attended a short presentation and played a game in groups which was really fun.
Around 4 o’clock we visited the rest of the Berlin wall and we split into two groups ( one in English and the other in German).We took a lot of pictures and finally some of us sat down on the grown for a small nap, exhausted by the long day that had started at 5….
Then we went to a church and attended an other conference really interesting , about the historic of the church organisation (even if some of us fell asleep during the presentation). But finally Kilian gave us a private piano concert in order to wake us up and just before going to the Italian restaurant “ Abbraccio”. We ordered pats and pizzas which was agin really ney for the Chinese! But everyone enjoyed it! What a day!

This was a long, but really exciting day in Paris. The programme was divided into three parts: reception of the Ministry for Youth and Active Solidarity, presentation and visit of the projects from Unis-Cité and Concordia and a trip on the bateau-mouche on the River Seine.

We started at 08:50 in the morning to go to the ministry where it was presented to us. We were informed about the structures and possibilities concerning youth work in France, the role of voluntary work now and in the future, how the ministry gives young people opportunities to choose and to find out what they want to do. One of their aims is to improve the understanding in society that youths play a very important role in our country. That is why they finance a lot of projects concerning living, working and studying in cooperation with many associations.

We found out that the ministry’s work is very different to what you have in China. There you only find volunteer organizations, but these have the same aims as the ones in France. After the talk, some students asked questions about what is done concretely for youth development and what they will do in the future, how they inform pupils about their projects and how they make them aware of what the offer. Another important subject was the cooperation between France and other countries in the field of voluntary work. Especially with Germany, there is a good exchange of information. For example, there are regular meetings every six months to coordinate common activities.

Afterwards, our group was divided into two parts. One group went to the project Concordia, where some volunteers work in an old train station to make a memorial. The station is of special importance because during the Second World Warn 20 000 Jews were transported from Auschwitz from there.

The rest of the group visited the organization Unis-Cité, which is a big social association in France that realizes and finances many projects in 24 French cities. We were especially talking about one project where volunteers go to families to teach them how to live more ecologically and how to reduce the costs for water, nutrition and electricity. The told them which products and fruits they should eat in which season. In another project, volunteers spend time with elderly people who are lonely and do not have the possibility to get out of their house, for example to go swimming to the sea. We also had the possibility to talk to one of the former volunteers who told us about her projects and her experiences.

Then we visited Montmarte and Sacre Coeur, where we could take many photos and we had a great view over the whole city of Paris. In the evening we met again with the whole group to have a big dinner in a typical French restaurant called Flams. Afterwards, we took the bus to the place where our boat trip in the bateau-mouche on the Seine started (after an extraordinary parking of our bus driver). From the boat we could see sights and buildings like Notre Dame, the Opera and the Eiffel Tower. After a nice bus journey home with singing Chinese songs we fell into our beds very tired.

Ni hao, Bonjour and Hallo!
With beautiful sunshine, each of the participants of the Chinese-French-German exchange arrived at our hostel “Le Rocheton” on Monday afternoon. French and German participants were impatiently waiting for the Chinese group. After checking in and meeting up with our roommates from different countries we had some spare time to get in contact and to know each other.
The barriers were falling down very quickly. The girls were in good conversation rapidly while the boys were playing basketball and getting in touch more physically.
After dinner and an official introduction by the organisation team we started some games. The games were called “Zip-Zap” and “How-are-you-game”. While playing them we learned each others names and some basic vocabulary of the three languages very easily.
With such a nice start we are utterly convinced that the next week will be very impressive, constructive and funny.

Dai Bowen, Hauke P., Martin B.

My name is Susanne D., I am 20 years and I am studying cultural engineering: cultural studies, knowledge management and logistic at the university of Magdeburg. I spend my leisure time travelling, learning languages and reading. I am working voluntarily at Aiducation International Deutschland and AIESEC Magdeburg. Aiducation International is a non-profit organization, dedicated to giving people access to education. Founded in 2007, the organization awards merit-based high school scholarships to bright and needy students in developing countries (focus on Kenya). Thereby, donors directly impact individuals and their societies. At AIESEC I am part of the talent management-team, responsible for human resource management (recruiting, selection, education and personal development of the member). AIESEC is a global youth organisation that engages in international student exchange and internship programmes for profit and non-profit organisations. I can report my experience in the following organisations: cultural villages of Europe, Jugendpresse Deutschland e.V. (youth press, esp. competition of school newspapers and mobile academy), Ashoka und Leading Changemakter (project Changemakercity), KanTe e.V. (cultural association, international music festival Upgrade), Schüler helfen Leben e.V. (pupil helping to live, esp. tour to schools and social day), schools without racism-schools with courage, Streetfootballworld (especially school project during worldcup 2006), school newspapers, living chess ensemble

My name is Catharina C. and I’m 25 years old. I currently live in Heidelberg, in the southwest of Germany. In Heidelberg, I study protestant theology in my 8th semester. During my studies, I lived in Dublin, Ireland, for one year in order to study ecumenical studies. I grew up in a rural area between the two cities Oldenburg and Osnabrück in the northwest of Germany. This is where I started my engagement in the Protestant Youth on a regional level. Since 2005, I represent my regional youth on the national level of the Protestant Youth Federation in Germany. In addition, I became an Executive Committee member of the Ecumenical Youth Council in Europe (EYCE) in May 2009. EYCE is an European umbrella organisation for national ecumenical youth councils all over Europe and is led by the Executive Committee, which consists of seven volunteers from the member organisations

Hello all, my name is Kirsten. 23 years ago I was born in frosty Schönebeck, which is located at the Elbe. For this reason, I am a German participant in this German-French-Chinese youth exchange. I am studying psychology in my last year of undergraduate education. After graduating I will do a master in political psychology in Belfast/Northern Ireland. With this master I pursue doing research in Political Psychology in the future. The languages I speak are German, English, French and Chinese. I learnt French both in school and in the French-speaking Switzerland. Moreover, I gained basic knowledge in Chinese with autodidactic education and in Beijing. I am committed to the Amnesty International club in Göttingen and to the international work group among the scholarship holders of the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.

My name is Saskia M. and I am 21 years old. From the time I had the course “English for children” in Kindergarden, I have shown enthusiasm for foreign languages. That is why I am studying for two years now “European Studies: Language, literature, culture” with the main languages Spanish and French and the subsidiary subject business studies at the Catholic University of Eichstätt-Ingolstadt. I took this course because the main focus is on the treatment of intercultural aspects and because I have the possibility to spend one semester abroad in France. Through one of my favourite books -“The Chinese” by Henning Mankell- I became interested in the Chinese culture and language and that is why I have already studied it for a year. As I started to organize the weekly group sessions with the younger servers of our parish at the age of 15, youth work plays an important role in my free time. Moreover, I am engaged in the organization of a yearly holiday camp and some other activities in the youth group. I am an adventurous and open-minded person and I like travelling and doing sports like inline-skating or swimming. Also, music is very important to me; I was playing the flute in an orchestra for many years and I am into going to festivals and concerts of all kinds. As I appreciate cultural exchange, I am looking forward to participating in the German-French-Chinese congress.

My name is Leonie von P.. I am 18 years old and I live together with my parents and my two brothers in Bochum, Germany. I will finish school with my abitur in summer 2011. My main courses in school are History and English and after my final exams I would like to study “Global Economics and Management” In my free time I love doing sports, especially soccer. I am coaching a junior boys soccer team. Furthermore, I work as a volunteer in church where I take care of teenagers during holidays in preparation for confirmation.

Hey! I am Annika S., 18 years old, and live in a tranquil little village close to Münster. I am going to stay here one more year to pass my A levels in 2011. However, I do already have itchy feet! When I was in fifth form, I was lucky enough to scent a bit of foreign air in France. Or rather in Brittany. For half a year I got the chance to live in a French family, to attend a lycée and to discover a bit of savoir vivre. Since my return I give French tuition and do my very best to get children enthusiastic about passé composé and subjonctif. I work voluntarily in an evangelical parish church in Münster, where I help to organise excursions for children and mentored a group of confirmees during two years. In my free time I act in a theatre group (I was a Frenchwoman in my last role!), do athletics more or less regularly and have been learning Chinese for half a year. Well, my knowledge of Chinese still limits to the usual dialogs of units 1-3 of the standard course book for adult evening classes (zhé shì wô de míngpián…), however China as a country fascinates me extremely. Before starting my studies at university I would like to use my time for a Voluntary Year of Social Service. Preferably abroad, of course, and perhaps my itchy feet will even carry me to China.