The youth from Sokolka aged between 13 and 16 responded to an invitation for handcraft workshops from Mayor of Sokolka. This handcraft workshops took place on the territory of Republic of Belarus (in Grodno, Odelsk and Karolino) from 8 to 10 of November 2019 within the project „Tyzenhauz Trail – Creation of a tourist route to promote cultural and historical heritage of two cities Sokolka and Grodno”. Thanks to this trip, young people through creativity touched on the topic of Antoni Tyzenhauz, who was a personality linking Sokolka and Grodno.
On the first day at the Cultural Heritage Center in Grodno everyone could learn the basics of working with ceramics, weaving, felting and sculpture.
The next day began with classes at the Art Gallery during which project participants had the opportunity to create their own family crest on the example of the crest of Tyzenhauz. The rest of the day passed by in Odelsk that is about 30 km away from Grodno. There during the Millers’ Day young people had the opportunity to meet with Mr. Mrian Skrmblewich – the creator of musical instruments. After the saturated with impressions day the participants returned to Grodno, where during their free time they continued working on their family crests.
The last day was filled with beautiful views of the Tyzenhauz Estate in Karolino, where the participants and group supervisors learned the history of this place, and also enyone could try horse riding.
Three days of intensive activities aroused curiosity to further explore of cultural and historical heritage of Sokolka and Grodno regions.
Gabrielle from Vlll class of secondary school nr. 2 in Sokółka summed up the workshops “… I did not know what to expect, but even the lack of Wi-Fi was not a problem, and the classes were organized so that they stuck in my memory and I would like to use them again J”.
Mrs. Ann who was one of the group supervisors said that the classes were very interesting, because at the end of the day the youth during their free time continued their work on the family crests.
20 people from Poland and 20 from Belarus participated in the handcrafts workshops. It was one of the fifteen planned activities of the project. The youth were captivated by the new place and culture. Everyone wanted to return to that places once again as well as to participate in further activities under the Project.
The project is co-financed by the European union within the Cross-border cooperation Programme Poland-Belarus-Ukraine 2014-2020. Thematic objective – Heritage operating under the European Neighborhood Instrument. The project is realized on the basis of grant contract nr. PLBU.01.01.00-20-0368/17-00 dated 3.01.2018 during the period 01.03.2019-28.02.2021.
