Hapnot’s travel club is back on home soil following a whirlwind voyage through Europe.
The crew, consisting of a Hapnot travel club record 37 travellers, embarked from Canada to Germany, first to Berlin then on to Dresden. Following that, the group crossed into the Czech Republic and visited Prague, before heading north to Poland and visiting Krakow and Auschwitz. The group then headed south into Slovakia, Hungary, then back into Slovakia before finishing the trip in Vienna, the Austrian capital.
The trip is not just a typical spring break getaway. The group focused on areas with educational appeal, including museums, art galleries, public squares and sites of historical significance.
“For me, it’s an opportunity for the kids to have a hands-on learning experience. It takes that opportunity that they don’t get in a classroom to a place to see history, to see the artwork and to see opportunities that they’ve seen in textbooks, but in person get to see them light up,” said Daniel Dillon, a teacher at Many Faces Education Centre who was a lead organizer for the trip. “They can bump into a piece of artwork on the Berlin Wall, seeing images, then getting to see it in person. It’s pretty cool.”
Members of the club sometimes had the opportunity to explore the areas they visited by themselves for short times, Dillon said.
“Sometimes, it was an amusement park. Other times it was something like tunnels and bunkers in the Czech Republic,” he said. “It’s pretty cool to see the kids learning outside the classroom.”
The historical context of the trip was a lot to bear for some students. Linnea McNichol remembers being overwhelmed during the group’s visit to the infamous concentration camp at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
“It was so heavy. There was so much information to take in. We’ve always heard about it in textbooks and read about it, talked about it, but really seeing it was a new perspective,” she said.
“There are displays of shoes and luggage and it goes through buildings where inmates were housed. There were walls with pictures on them and all of the names and their prisoner numbers. It went through the gas chambers that were used at that time.”
Hapnot staff have organized travel club trips for more than two decades. In recent years, the trips have proved so popular that two different travel clubs have sprouted up. One includes trips specifically catered to students interested in francophone culture.
As well as showing the visitors a new locale, the trips also help foster a sense of responsibility and maturity in the students who go.
“One big thing is, when we get back, you will see a difference in every single person who goes on these trips,” said Andy Richard, one of the students who made the trip.
“Both me and my younger brother David went on this trip and I’ve seen major changes in myself from this trip – self-confidence and being able to know when I have to step in and say something: knowing when I need to have some time away from people: being able to take control of something in my own life. I’ve noticed, for my brother seeing other kids on the trip, he has more responsibility and has better time management now. That’s really because of this trip and the skills we learned.”
Dillon concurs, saying he could see the students grow during their voyage.
“If you don’t see it in yourself, I see it,” he said. “These folks have been on two trips with me now, giving them the leadership skills. If there were things I could ask them to do while we were there, the trust factor from my position, to be able to have confidence in these folks to do things, to have free time on their own, to be with a group, be responsible, be back on time. It was great to see that level of maturity grow over time.”
Not all of the knowledge gained from the group’s sojourn overseas was planned. The trip featured some first-hand experience with civil disobedience. During the group’s time in Berlin, a tour detailing the history of Germany’s capital city was interrupted by a pro-internet transparency protest.
“They’re bringing in a new internet law in Europe and there must have been 10,000 young adults walking behind us down the street as we were listening to our presentation, with music and signs and chanting,” said Dillon.
“I thought it was a beautiful thing to see. I love to have that opportunity. The students, as we were going on to our next location, we had to pass through the group of individuals walking down the street, but if we had the opportunity, I would have loved to have the students be part of it and see what it was like.”
Members of the group also encountered a group in Budapest affiliated with FridaysForFuture, a student climate change awareness group based in Sweden. Dillon has used the group’s teachings in his own classes back in Flin Flon.
“We hung out with them for about an hour or two and had some conversations with them,” said Dillon.
“They were standing up for what they believed in and making a difference. Hopefully, that will instill a little bit of insight into the kids, what they can do and how they can stand up, come together and make change.”
The next Hapnot travel club trip will be to South America in 2021. Another trip, organized through the French Immersion travel group, will take place next year, taking a group through Quebec and Ontario on spring break.
Richard recommends that students take the opportunity to travel before the pressures of day-to-day adult life make travel difficult.
“I’d definitely recommend these trips to anybody who has the opportunity to go. Go on as many as you can while you’re still in school,” said Richard. “You might not get that opportunity to travel when you’re older. It’s nice to get that opportunity now to go all over the world and do all these different things. It really will change your perspective on the world and it will change your life dramatically. I’d definitely suggest going, if you can.”
