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Eight highlights of this day:

1. Around ten in the morning we were off to the NYC where the conference should take place. Vasilis made introduction with two short movies. The first showing the beautiful scenery of Greece and also footage from the last visit Nippon Maru made in Greece. People took photos. The other movie was photos from the fire catastrophe that recently took both human lives and destroyed forests. With this opening Vasilis wanted to connect things to a global context and reminding of why we are having this reunion.

2. We ate lots of octopus at fish restaurant. We took group photo.Octupus dinner

3. We were asked why we came to the reunion. Some of the things mentioned were…
Reinforce SWY-spirit
Experiences from other AA:s
Own experiences
To have fun
Learn about fundraise work
Learn how to organize youths
Visit Greece
Learn more about social justice issuesVasilis is opening the conference

Sunset at Sounion4. We experienced sunset at temple of Poseidon in Sounion. Carolina and Lakeesha made classic photoshoot. We took group photo.

5. One of the capitanas, Tamae (the other one is Xenia), gave some SWYAA background and facts. People took photos of her while presenting. Here are just some of the things SWYAA is doing:
- Promotion kit – SWYAA has a promotion kit consisting of a PowerPoint presentation (in English, Spanish, Arabic and Japanese) and a DVD (in English and Japanese). You can download the material from the webpage.
- Global photo contest
-Social contribution activities

6. Diego was showing great skills in adaptation. We took photos.

Egypt and Bahrain making presentation7. Volunteer fire fighter Georgios gave us the formula to keep fire-fighter volunteers active:
-Practice all year around
-Do social things so the volunteers become friends
-Creating group feeling, a fellowship
And on the question why he himself chooses to be a volunteer fire fighter he gave three answers. One of them were:
– My wife was once saying that I spent too much time on my voluntary work in the squad. She was not happy at all. But I explained to her: You have legs and can run. But Greece cannot run away.
Participants made applause and photos.

8. We made the shortest visit ever for a big group at the Lavrio Technological and cultural park. We took group photo.

Vasilis TikosName: Vasilis Tikos
Country: Greece
SWY-connection: ExPY of SWY 6 and currently president SWYAA Greece.

What is your best SWY memory?
– It’s impossible to choose…
But if you must…
– Meeting people and the memory of meeting each and every one of them is equally important. I cannot choose one.
How can we foster the SWY-spirit in the future?
– Take off our masks and believe in ourselves. We should believe that we were choosed by a purpose and you don’t have to try hard. Things will come by itself.
How could we make the world a better place for everybody?
– We cannot stop the rain – but we could hold an umbrella. If everybody makes himself or herself better the world will automatically be a better place.

Carolina LamName: Carolina Lam
Country: Hawai‘i, USA
SWY-connection: ExPY of SWY 16

What is your best SWY memory?
– In our national presentation we incorporated the hula auwana dance and people really liked it. My roommates liked it so much they wanted to learn it. So we formed a spontaneous group and many Japanese participants dedicated completely and had an own exhibition.
How can we foster the SWY-spirit in the future?
– The exPYs from USA is all over the country so it’s hard to work together. But we can promote SWY more since SWYAA has lots of material we could use better. It is important that people and the government know that programmes like this exists.
How could we make the world a better place for everybody?
– The only way we could make that happens is to understand each other better. That could not be done over a night. It has to be done step by step. By education, small campaigns and so on.

Look at more photos from this day here.