Crossroads through Music Festival

Photo © J. Garbino
Photo © J. Garbino
Version française Sophie Colesse
09 July 2007

The 2007 edition of Fête de la musique in Geneva brought ICV to Place Saint Antoine this year, where it held a stand from 22 to 24 June 2007.

A busy weekend, with 110 kg of chicken prepared for the Thai curry dish, noodles and Lebanese meat balls, hummus and taboulet. Volunteers prepared also cocktails and soft drinks for the many music festival visitors. Hundreds of meals and drinks were served in a festive but also sometimes hectic environment.

Thanks to all the volunteers, ICVolunteers involvement in the 17th edition of the music festival was a great success. We had lots of people queuing up at our stand, enough to heat the rise cooker that had a hard time keeping up with the demand of the many customers.

The proceedings of the festival will go to the "School Project". This project links schools from different places, from the North and the South. It has made it possible for the desert school in the North of Timbuktu to get school equipment and support. Books from the Lycée international de Ferney-Voltaire got to students of the Lycée de Fogou in Guinea and many other collaborations are to come.

Assiba Adoko, originally from Benin and one of the volunteers involved in the Music Festival logistics, pointed out that she had participated in a similar project with UNESCO Clubs while still in Benin. "My high school was partnering with a French school at the time. It was really a very rich exchange and experience for both of the schools involved. This is why I would like to reiterate my support to ICVolunteers," she added.

The choice of the schools is based on long-term partnerships and exchanges, as this is for example the case with the Desert School in the North of Mali, with which ICVolunteers has been collaborating for a number of years (see www.shindouk.org) and that has received direct and indirect support from and through us.

The philosophy of collaboration is not based on "charity", but rather a true partnership between students from different parts of the world, as well as the teachers, involving them in exchanges of ideas, views, cultural information and more. This partnership and collaborative approach is very much what ICVolunteers is developing in general, empowerment, rather than assistance, the method to fish rather than the fish.

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