DAY I

Today Marsaxlokk became more international. Representatives of Catholic Students’ organisations from all over Europe gathered at the study session of JECI-MIEC. We started to work over the students’ role in a European society. Thanks to this, we would like to identify who we are.
And we started at once. In the morning we had some introductory activities, as we have to find out about each other, our organisations and our characteristics. Later we proceeded with answering question “Why study?”. In the afternoon “Link”, Maltesian Youth Catholics’ organisation, brought us a lot of emotions by binding our groups in which we will work on JECI-MIEC’s oreintation guidelines in the forthcoming days. The day ended with amusing multicultural evening, at which we could get to know all present nationalities, their characteristics, habits and traditions, as well as try the Maltesian food thanks to one of the best cook in Malta (by the way, if you visit Marsaxlokk once, we recommend www.tavictor.com :).
A lot to write, not many space to fill. Hope that you enjoy our reports and see you tomorrow!

DAY II

We started our day and week with the Holy Mass. Later, after breakfast, we entertained Professor Joseph N. Grima, who showed us – as the president of the University of Malta’s “Degree Plus” – how we the Maltesian university encourages its students to develop their personality in many directions. Just before and after lunch we proceeded with interesting workshops on the topic of the students’ realities across Europe. Pre-supper time was used to plan and already implement our work over the Orientation Guidelines 2012-2016. Finally, the day ended with the Museum of Organizations, at which everybody could find out how each other’s national organization works.

DAY III

This day expired under the topic of interreligious activities. First, we could meet Imam Mohamed El Sadi, who explained us a lot about Islam. Any misinformation, stereotypes or prejudices that we could have before this meeting have just flew away. The round table took place together with the catholic priest, rev. Dr. Markus Wasserfuhr. After this we had a role play during which we decided about building (or not) a mosque in a centre of imaginary town called Sleepyville. After lunch we received another guest – rev. Dr. Rene Cilia, who told us about differences between Church and secular culture. At the end of the day, we continued our work over the Orientation Guidelines. See you tomorrow!

DAY IV

Wednesday at JECI-MIEC’s study session could be described with two nouns: democracy and Mdina/Rabat. The first part of the day was sacrificed to discussing how young Catholics can participate in democratic life of their environment. Jan Zujewicz and Ryan Mercieca gave us their testimony of their activity in – consecutively – the Council of the Old Town District (Poznañ, Poland) and the National Youth Council of Malta. After lunch we left to visit Mdina, the medieval town, former capital of Malta. We finished the day with abundant dinner eaten in nice surrounding of Malta seminary. Thank you Sergio, Marco, Anne-Marie and all other organizers (from MKSU) of our today trip!

DAY V

This day began with a movie (apart from the Holy Mass, as always) after which we had short discussions about the message of the movie. The afternoon was contained an input of Fr. Dr. Markus Wasserfuhr about our responsibility as students facing challenges and focussed also on working on the Orientation Guidelines. These discussions finalized with creation of the model of tomorrow’s final debate and setting the outlook of the Orientation Guidelines. It seems that 4-day work now finally reaches the end… A lot of emotions before tomorrow’s morning, nobady knows what waits for us then, but before… let’s have a party tonight!