Weekend Seminar

Last weekend, March 28+29, a World Habonim Dror Seminar was held on Kibbutz Afikim. Participants included workshoppers and shnatties from English-speaking countries such as North America, England, Holland, South Africa, Australia & New Zealand. This was the first formal opportunity the workshoppers had to meet the "new" participants from the southern hemisphere, who arrived early in February.
The seminar was a lot of fun, with programming partially built by different participant groups themselves. The workshoppers were responsible for some chuggim (small interest groups) with creative themes such as : Russian Literature in the 18th century; Rikud (dance); Music; teaching basic Arabic; Health education in Canada; and a supposed Na'aleh favourite - Shoegolf.
There was a lot of games, skits and a wonderful Kabbalat Shabbat involving performances by mixed mishpachot (families) from amongst all the countries participating.
On Saturday we had chuggim on various issues facing children across the world, such as child exploitation; child soldiers; child sex-trafficking; child refugees and more. This was followed by a screening of the movie "Newsies"based on the true story of the Newsboys strike of 1899 in New York City (a youth-led campaign to force change in the compensation given to the child-labour force).
Following the movie we had a wonderful barbeque lunch in the sunshine, and one more peula which looked at the UN Declaration of Human Rights and other examples of how a unification comes through an expression of responsibility for the other and finding a partnership of building the same society.