Let’s go together

TIME

1 period

NECESSARY MATERIALS

• Travel plan sheets for each student: blank, 20 days, the country should be different than the country where the students are going to allow students to be more creative. Some details should be share: time and city of arrival at the airport, time and city of departure (different from arrival) and 1 or 2 other information
• A map of the country that you have chosen
• Travel guides of the chosen country
• Coloured markers
• Paper-board
• One big travel plan sheet (identical to the individual ones)

STEP-BY-STEP DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTIVITY

Give each student a travel plan sheet and ask each of them to fill it in order to create “the ideal trip to them” (20 minutes)

They need to plan:

• Accommodation (what kind? where?)
• Transportation (which vehicle? How many km per day?)
• Different stops, visits etc.

In small groups (4 or 5 students maximum), ask each student to share their travel plan. (10 minutes)

Gather the whole group together. The objective is now to create the “Great Travel Plan”, in which everybody can identify and find part of his/her wishes and motivations. (20 minutes)

Facilitate the debate between the students:

• Accommodation: some choose hotels, other family hosting etc. What is behind the preferences? How to find a solution that works for everybody?
• Visits: which ones to choose? What is the objective?

When you have finished to create the “Great Travel Plan” through consensus, initiate a talk with the group (10 minutes):

• Are you happy with the result of this plan? Why?
• Was it hard to find a common travel plan that everybody could identify with? Why?
• What does that mean for you/your project? What difficulties might you face and how to address them?

The activity raises awareness about the gap, sometimes considerable, between the personal motivations of each member of the group. You should point out that various motivations can lead to very different planning choices. Moreover, they are not always compatible in terms of on-site planning. It is important then to think as a group.

RECOMMENDATIONS / TIPS

The activity suits perfectly collective mobility programs (a class for example).

If you organise an exchange with another school for example, you as a facilitator can also play along and fill the travel plan sheet as the professor from the host country.

REFERENCES

CCFD Terre Solidaire, Visa pour le voyage, http://ccfd-terresolidaire.org/mob/nos-outils-d-animation/visa-pour-le-voyage/