Monday 19/06/2023

11:15-13:30 and 14:30-16:30

Outdoor Leadership Activities and Games – Team Building Session

Nicole Parides, Mollie Stern

  • Teambuilding activities

Students try to lift a hula hoop as a group with each person only using one finger. The exercise is designed to build teamwork and patience skills. There will also be an activity of students standing in a line as per their shoe size, smallest to largest all without talking.

  • Creative writing exercises & improvisation
Tuesday 20/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Intro to the Leadership Workshop

Ainara Hidalgo Ferreiras and Rebecca Skedros

  • Communication Activities

All participants form a straight line, facing the same direction. The last person in line will be the “leader”. The leader will write down an action. For instance: “I was taking a walk and saw someone. I waved and fell.” After that, the leader will tap the participant standing in front of them and demonstrate the action they wrote without verbal cues. Then that participant taps the next person and demonstrates that action. The demonstration will continue up to the beginning of the line. Then, the first person on the line will have to guess what the action is. The goal of this activity is to illustrate to students that the role of a leader is both extremely difficult and impactful. What we say and how we communicate may be skewed or misinterpreted so vastly that the original action has lost all meaning. Communication can make or break a team.

  • Growth-Mindset Activities

Students will come up with and share a negative experience and have others reframe that experience into a positive one. The goal of this activity is to allow students understand how experiences are beneficial to understand themselves and the world around them better.

Wednesday 21/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Leadership Workshop

Graham Boswell, Michael DArcangelo and Nicole Parides

  • Aristotle’s writings and the responsibilities of a leader

During this course, students will explore Aristotle’s writings on Rhetoric and then a debate will be held on what defines a leader and what is their role/responsibility in our modern society.

  • Reading Assignment on Women’s Rights and Debate

For this course, students will have a reading assignment on Linda Noclin’s essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists”, and then they will proceed to debate/discuss Noclin’s thesis. The goal of this workshop is to offer a better understanding of the institutional barriers for women artists in the past, as well as to offer an opportunity for discussion on the importance of intersectionality.

Friday 23/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Course on Community Service

Clarissa Bird, Michael DArcangelo and Rebecca Skedros

  • Reflection Session on the “All For Blue” experience

Students will have the opportunity to talk about their thoughts and impressions over the Experiential Workshop “All For Blue”.

  • Understanding Community Service and Community Programming

Students will elaborate on the various forms of service, focusing on direct and indirect service. Direct service will be defined as volunteer work/donations while a more indirect way of service will center on changing the systems in place for the better. In addition, there will be a conversation about the larger goal of service, understanding how various structures in society don’t always support human rights. Lastly, students will be able to reflect on current issues and how they could be improved with structural changes to laws or societal changes. The goal of this part of the course is to allow students to understand how problems arise in our society and give them the opportunity to brainstorm preventative measures for a variety of problems.

The second part of the course will revolve around the topic of enacting meaningful change through Community Programming, meaning enacting change through prevention programs versus empowerment programs. Students will be taught the basics of Community Psychology that acts as a bridging science connecting research and action. Students will be walked through different methods of research and research ethics, how we define the problems a community may be facing, the thematic of first-order vs second-order change, the definition of a community (membership, integration, influence, shared connections) and, lastly, its implications, meaning diversity within communities and the error of logical typing (when and where to intervene). Examples of what will be used are: a) Interview-structures, b) Paolo Freire’s theory of critical consciousness and how it can drive citizens to critically reflect, gain political efficacy, and act based on these reflections. Students will take a social justice topic their interested in and use reflection tools to explore that.

Monday 26/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Leadership Workshop and Course on Film Analysis and Media Studies

Rebecca Skedros, Graham Boswell and Clarissa Bird

  • Organization Activity

Students will have to create a social entrepreneurship project and decide on its mission. Then, they will reflect on a problem that this social entrepreneurship project could be facing and will be assigned a role. Based on their role, they will have to work together to come up with a solution. The process will continue with students rotating roles and various problems to deal with, in order to understand the role that they feel most comfortable in and explore various ways to solve a problem.

  • Media Studies and Film Analysis

The course will center on Media studies and the Modern Greek film. Students will learn about representation in Film and Media, meaning how marginalized identities have been represented throughout the history of film and how these historical representations are being perpetuated, changed, or erased in modern filmmaking and discourse. In addition, students will be asked to create video essays, analyzing particular scenes in a film, an entire movie, or particular cinematography elements in multiple films. Lastly, students will learn about Greek Mythology in Modern Film, specifically how the ancient Greek mythology and its tropes are represented in international modern filmmaking.

Tuesday 27/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Leadership Workshop addressing all modules and Discussion on the Impact of Natural Disasters

Ainara Hidalgo Ferreiras, Graham Boswell and Michael DArcangelo

  • Leadership Workshop addressing all modules

The US Fellows Ainara Hidalgo Ferreiras and Graham Boswell will coordinate a panel where US Fellows will be able to share own stories and views on leadership.

  • Understanding natural disasters and study of the case of Louisiana (addressing the HR & SD Module)

This discussion, following a presentation by Michael DArchangelo, will focus on understanding the human rights concerns during hurricanes (privatization of public resources, negligence of essential infrastructure, and deliberate unequal treatment of racial minorities, immigrants, and working people). Then, students will be able to study the case of Louisiana, especially the relationship between human beings and the environment (the petroleum industry’s pollution of air and water and heavy erosion of the coastlines of Louisiana).

Wednesday 28/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Leadership Workshop

Clarissa Bird, Rebecca Skedros and Ainara Hidalgo Ferreiras

Students become the teachers. With the support of US Fellows they learn how to design a curriculum to teach others about a particular social justice cause they are interested in. In the process of identifying the cause they are passionate about, they discuss prior volunteer experiences within and beyond the school setting. A guest speaker representing a non-profit organization is invited in class and “interviewed” by the students, with the support of US Fellows. The discussion is revolving around topics such as how can we serve the mission of an organization through our actions as volunteers; what are the roles of people working within a non-profit; is direct or indirect service more impactful?

Friday 30/06/2023

14:30-16:30

Leadership Workshop and Course on How Narratives Shape Cultural Values

Michael Darcangelo and Graham Boswell

  • Women as leaders through “Lysistrata”

During this course, students will get to know the comedy of Aristophanes “Lysistrata” and reflect on the role of women as leaders, their participation in war and the challenges of navigating through a patriarchal society.

  • How Narratives Shape Cultural Values

In this part of the course, students will have a reading assignment of the Grimm Fairy Tales to understand how narratives are constructed. Afterwards, they will have to read certain passages of the Iliad, exploring Ancient Greek cultural values and how these have translated into the modern day.

Monday 03/07/2023

13:30-16:30

Leadership Workshop and Reflection Session on the “Downtown Acropolis Area Tour” experience

Ainara Hidalgo Ferreiras

  • Cooking and Humanitarian course around greek food

Students will have to pick a Greek dish and research its origins. Similarly to people, food traditions have a history. Whether a dish was created out of circumstance, joy, or during a time of fleeing persecution, our dishes can tell us a lot about how we are universally connected. For example, “moussaka” is a national dish in both Greece and Albania. Although Greece is a mainly Christian country and Albania is mainly a Muslim one, they are united in this food tradition.

At the end of the course, we make a dish!

  • Reflection Session on the “Downtown Acropolis Area Tour” experience and conversation on theater

During this part, students will be able to share their thoughts about what they saw and learnt during their “Downtown Acropolis Area Tour”. Since theater played a major part in Ancient Greek culture, students will then have a conversation about “Theater of the Oppressed”. They will explore how the theatrical art can help us identify and escape oppression and achieve liberation. There will be also leadership activities to understand systems of oppression and how to combat them.

Tuesday 04/07/2023

14:30-16:30

Mindfulness Activities and Reflection Session on the “Gennadeios Tour” experience

Ainara Hidalgo Ferreiras

  • Mindfulness Activities

During this activity, students will sit next to a teammate and focus on a specific spot in nature. Both of them look at the same spot in silence for 15 minutes and then jot down what they see and what feelings arise during the experience.

  1. Reflection Session

As a first activity, participants toss a ball from one to another. Each person who catches the ball states one thing she or he learned or can use from the PLA experience so far. Secondly, the facilitator will pose a summarizing question for students to answer, for example: “What remarks that you have heard here today will you especially remember as meaningful?”, “What idea can you take home to use in your community?”. Then, students will be asked to try to think of a word or phrase that sums up their feelings at the end of today’s session. Lastly, students will engage in the activity of “Releasing the Dove of Peace”. In this activity, the facilitator mimes holding a significant object (e.g., bird, turtle) and invites each participant to say something to it as it is passed from one participant to another. After the “object” has been passed to everyone, they draw into a tight circle and collectively let it go.