On May 24, 2023, Mgr. Alena Cilíková from Gymnázium Myjava led a Student Parliament Elections workshop, connected to the subject of Civic education. The students first discussed the role of the Student Parliament, before proceeding to activities connected with the election itself.

The students were separated into several groups, each tasked with forming their own political parties and each picking their speaker, then preparing a poster introducing their policies. One group formed the Election Committee and prepared the ballot box and all the papers. After preparing their campaigns and giving their voting speeches, the students experienced simulated elections and after counting the votes, the official winner was announced. The workshop helped foster the students’ creative and communicative skills, as well as teaching them civic responsibility.

The first in our series of workshops, titled The Healing Power of the Word, took place online on March 21, 2023, coinciding with the International Poetry Day as well as International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. It was led by professor Fella Benabed from Badji Mokhtar - Annaba University, Algeria, and focused on the concepts of psychological resilience and coping skills, empathy, building the students’ racial tolerance and their teamwork skills through various activities. These were centered on Maya Angelou’s poem “Still I Rise”, IFAD’s video "This Is How We Rise", and Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech.

Maya Angelou’s poem as well as IFAD’s video and the subsequent discussions introduced the participants to the issues of discrimination and women’s empowerment, while the discussions around MLK’s speech focused on the Civil Rights movement. Other activities focused on fostering the students’ yearning for justice and equality, and the final assignment concerned their self-actualization.