Switch -The free trip “in 4 days around the world” for kids in their own hometown
Children and youths from 186 nations live in Hamburg and Lübeck. 80,000 of them are school pupils
between the ages of 8 and 14. 84% are children of German heritage and ca. 16% are
children with an ethnic minority background or non-German origin. This presents us with
such a marvellous opportunity to learn about other lifestyles, customs and traditions.
Adventure lives next door. You just have to knock!
In summary, the principle is: 4 children from 4 continents, 4 days for children between
the ages of 8 to 14: each team will consist of four families. Each of the four families
should come from a different continent, if practicable (Africa, America, Asia, Australia,
Europe). All 4 children in the team will spend the day with each of the team families from
a different national and continental origin. On one of the four days, the child will spend
the day with his own family so that he can present his way of life to the other three
children. As far as possible, each group will be comprised of two boys and two girls.
The participating children and parents can freely coordinate the day agenda with the
guest children. The goal of the trip is, however, to show as much of the home country as
possible to the visitors in a relatively short time of 6-8 hours. Therefore, the participating
families will receive a checklist along with their informational materials pertaining to
ideas for activities on the visit day (e.g. cook a traditional meal together, look at
photographs, sing songs from the home country, etc.).
In order to hold on to the experiences and impressions of the children, each
participating child will receive a Switch diary with partially pre-worded questions and
pre-designed pages for them to write and draw pictures in. At the closing party, the best
three diaries will receive an award. The first prize will be a real trip to one of the
exchange countries.
At the moment we are intensively trying to find children especially from Africa, Asia,
North and South America and South and East Europe. All Switch-weeks will be in
summer and winter vacations. The application form can be downloaded from this
website.