Anna Muxí Bartrolí, Spain:
„The training ‘Safe Internet to End Cyber-violence’ took place in Brigittenau, a beautiful and accessible youth hostel not too far from the downtown area, and lasted for five days (6th November – 10th November 2023). It was organised by Grenzenlos, and it brought together
about seventeen participants from more than eight countries (including Austria). I am a girl in a wheelchair who has never been too far from Spain, so meeting people from Greece, Germany, Estonia, Turkey, Armenia, Italy, Bulgaria and even more distant countries meant for me to discover a whole new world. I was really interested in the main topic of the training — knowing how to identify types, causes and consequences of cyber-violence in order to be able to find solutions to the problem—, but I also enjoyed very much (for the first time, actually, because I had never been given the chance to do it) the part about exchanging descriptions of some curious cultural facts or regional customs with the people around me…
Being able to listen to other people’s opinions was also great, and so it was getting to express my own ones. However, I remember that a few weeks earlier —when I still had to buy the plane tickets to Vienna, one for my care-giver and one for me— I got really scared. I couldn’t stop thinking that I know I’m not a good conversationalist; that I haven’t really studied much about cyber-violence; that people would find my speech boring… I suddenly realized that flying so far away from home was the kind of decision that my colleagues in the Catalan Association of Friedreich’s Ataxia (a Catalan association which aims to find social and financial support for the investigation of Friedrich’s Ataxia, the disease I have) would never make. My parents were afraid, too. They have always taken care of me, and I have learned to feel safe within the four walls of our home. But then Grenzenlos came to help me get out of that comfort zone, and I realized that I’m capable of doing more things than those I thought I could do. I ate ice-cream in winter; I visited a shop full of teddy-bears… I even danced to a Bulgarian song with my class- mates, forgetting that I’m in a wheelchair!…“
Read the full report with lots of photos here.
