“On the fourth day of the Evaluation Seminar in Hungary, we travelled into the City of Budapest to complete a ‘Budapest City Quest’. When we arrived in the City centre, each nationality were handed a booklet, in which had several pages of instructions of activities we had to complete in order to receive information about something which would earn us points. Due to the fact that many of the Hungarian participants already knew a range of information about the City itself and its History, we were placed in teams, Brazilian and English participants joined together and split into smaller groups, and the same format with the Hungarian teams. This enabled us to exercise and work on our communication skills, as we were put in a position which meant we had to communicate across a language barrier, equally share and listen to ideas, and efficiently work as a team to successfully complete the quest.

The activities within the booklet helped explore many skills, such as working in a team, leadership skills such as organisation and creativity, but also taught us interesting and important information about the history of Budapest itself. For example, one of the pages had an old photograph from the city many years ago, and the task encouraged us to go and find the location of the picture, and then in teams recreate the photograph as close to the original as possible. This saw us being creative and working in a team, getting everyone involved despite the language barrier.

Similarly, another page’s activity meant we were to find the famous ‘heroes square’ of Budapest and retrieve information about specific statues that we came across, meaning we learnt about the history of various things in the City but in a more challenging and inventive way than simply walking around. Throughout the day we visited many things which are key to Budapest’s history and culture, including a memorial of the shoes of Jewish people from the war, which, although sad, felt important to visit and hear about.

This activity was a great thing to take part in as it meant we got to travel across Budapest, seeing many interesting sights, learn about its culture and history, all the while working on many leadership skills such as teamwork, communication and building friendships”.

By Emily Dodd, British participant.