The participants of our Youth Dialogue Lab meet every second week. On Tuesday we a guest at Mondo NGO in Tallinn. We started off with an inspiring and interactive presentation by Global Education expert Mari Jõgiste. They learned about the aid work of Mondo around the world and about their global education program. The intro concluded with a game about carbon footprints.
Based on this warm-up the participants brainstormed questions they could investigate in their group dialogue, as they do every session. The questions they came up with were:
- Why do people in Estonian not know about global education?
- How can a person reduce their CO2 footprint?
- How can we help others as students?
- How much can a student actually do to help others?
- Why should we care people we don’t know?
After that, they chose the last question of this list to explore in more depth. This sparked a very inspiring dialogue, with the question being looked at from different angles. They discussed the difference between helping people you know and people you don’t. Why would you help a friend or family member first and only donate to an organisation like Mondo later? They also asked themselves why they actually help others. Is it to collect karma points? Is it egoistic? Is it for ‘moral satisfaction’? Or is it out of empathy?
They also considered situations where helping others could cause you harm. Does that compensate for the selfish part of helping someone? They came up with an example: would you save someone from a traffic accident if it meant you would be hit instead? Or what about two friends who are both applying for the same job? The one who gets the job says no so that the other friend can get it.
Thank you very much Mari Jõgiste for your warm welcome!
The next Youth Dialogue Lab session will be at the Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom on 25th of November. Our young members will get a tour and after that they’ll hold a group conversation again to reflect and investigate their own questions.
