Laisvės piknikas/ Freedom picnic

VDU AJMD “Modusas”

Practical information: all opinions are important What materials are needed: depending to the place and sessions Duration: One day Group Size: undefined Level of difficulty for learners: none Short description

In 2015 the idea came spontaneously after a reporter Andrius Tapinas was refused permission to meet with the Kaunas district community. In rebellion, the reporter said he would organize a picnic where everyone would be welcome. This became a social phenomenon - 10,000 people from all over Lithuania participated in the “Freedom Picnic”.

After the first event in Kaunas, this festival has been spreading all around Lithuania in towns like Tauragė, Marijampolė, Alytus, Utena. The festival is dedicated to people with different professions, ages, social statuses. The main goal, which have not changed throughout the years, is to encourage people to think freely, express their opinions about current issues. It is created to help unite and help public organizations, communities and citizens discover each other thereby creating a better life.

How does the picnic engage citizens/learner?

The main event of this practice is the discussion space, where learners, citizens, organizers are sharing their thoughts on the most relevant political, educational, social and environmental issues.

Learners/participants are involved in the discussion space creation by choosing the themes for relevant issues. All participants are involved with the choosing of politicians, government officials and other personas that needs to be discussed.

A lot of attention is brought to the non-governmental organizations. During the practices the participated organizations are representing their work, educating society about their field (natural sciences organizations – educating in the biology, ecology fields) and encourages people to join their team.

Learners are able to participate in an entertainment place: variety of sports, quizzes and games. They can join the activities with the health, science and youth communities. In the picnic of freedom learners, organizers, citizens – all the participants are having a picnic together where they can freely share their thoughts, discuss on various political/ non-political topics and have a great time with live music, games and food. Which co-creation moments are included?

Participants gets together to the picnic to find solutions to various problems. People are encouraged to engage and talk about the political organizations and parties. The most important point of this practice – to express and discuss political views. In the discussion space participants are welcome to share their ideas and solutions to the topic for the audience.

During this event, participants can raise any important questions/topics. They can find likeminded people to work with on the topic until next year event. At the next event they can make a discussion, showing what they have done after last event. Participants get enrolled in organization activities. All the activities encourage people to collaborate to all problems. The practice helps to the society to talk about important problems in creative and non-formal way.

Pedagogic/methodological aspects

For the event there is a need to find a place for the picnic, where all the participants could feel cozy. Also, it needs to prepare places for different space events – discussions, music, entertainment and social spaces.

For the discussion space seats are needed for speakers and listeners. For the music space –a stage for the musicians and a place for

participants. Inventory for the co-creational games should be prepared in the entertainment space. All the organizations are preparing the social space – they need presentations of their work and games to engage the public.

Organizers should take care of participating organizations, political representatives, musicians, and general entertainment for the participants.

The spaces for the picnic can be chosen according to the themes that needs to be discussed and the number of participants.

Organization and country: “Laisvės piknikas” Lithuania, Kaunas Target group: speakers, citizens and organizations Age group: 12 – 60 Context / Learning environment: non-formal education References, Link to the practices: https://laisvespiknikas.lt/

SWOT

Strength Engaging citizens to participate in the political life of the country. Easily share their opinion, ideas, get new contacts and cooperate with others. Weakness The organizers are afraid, that people will be more interested in the entertainment field of the practice than the discussions. Opportunities This practice can help to reach a big number of participants that is useful for the discussion of the important topics. Threats It is difficult to control and work with a lot of participants. The challenge of this practice is to make every person engaged to participate in the discussions.

Which aspects are transferable?

The idea to have a picnic with different participant groups can be transferred to any context. The discussion space can be held for various important topics.

What kind of change is created?

The practice empowers participants to get some new points of view about the political situation and other topics. Also, it allows participant to get to know more about the social organizations and their work. It encourages people to join them.

No power beyond hope

A student, that participated in this event in the 2018, shared his memories of the practice. He said that that year, as many as five different discussion spaces were singled out at the festival - electoral Lithuania, reforms, Greater Lithuania, the future generation and resonances. The most interesting discussion was called ‘No power beyond hope’. During the discussion organizers attract a lot of politicians and involved them in the discussion with the participants. People shared their ideas, concerns and were looking for the best solution to solve the issues. During the festival participants could meet like-minded people and so the new contacts begin.

Also, it was interesting to get to know more about the participating organizations. They had prepared some co-creation games where everyone was engaged to participate and express their own opinion about important topics by playing games and working in the teams.

Conclusion

This practice shows how to work with big number of people by organizing an event where each person’s opinion is important. It shows how to create an informal space where participants can feel free and cozy. Here, a big number of people can do some important 87

work for the community – to say at least something about any topic that needs to be discussed. During this event people are engaged to the discussion and actively participate in various co-creational activities.