Noborder Camp - Mursko Sredisce, Croatia 2004

Impressions settled down, so it’s time for report. Tho whole event was organized by the following groups: ACT, AFA, ANFEMA, FNB, RAI. During those two days around 60 people visited camp, some for one day, some for both days. People who worked in organization came a day earlier to prepare a camp. We expected rain, but despite our fears, it was nice weather most of the time. The place was very nice - big meadow near the fish pond, with little cottage and sunshade. The kitchen was a little bit further, in the small trellis, so that we can have more space for workshops and projections.

The first day, 30th of April, there was the big cooking, because we expected a lot more people to come, so in the end we had some food left. We planned FNB in the town, but it started to rain, and since it was afternoon and it wasn’t a lot of people in the town, we gave up the plan. In the evening there were two lectures with projections - about borders in general and Schengen regime, and about trafficking of women. After that there was a big discussion considering organization of the camp, plans for tomorrow, absence and lack of interest of local people, and some other problems. I think discussion was positive, questioning A- movement, opening some problems for the future, but I also think that in the end it spread out and become repetitive. The second day some people went early in the morning to pick up bread in the city, and some went to spread out leaflets inviting people for a round table later that day. Around noon there was a Food not bombs in a town, with juggling, but only few people showed up, which was pretty disappointing. When we got back in a camp, there was a lot of local people eating, drinking and having fun, celebrating the 1st of May. Since we planned to make a workshop about the topic of immigrants and asylum seekers, we asked those people to join in, but they preferred to party, so most of them went away, and just a small group stayed and listened. Workshop was great despite of that.

In the town began round table in 6 pm. It was 17 of us, including guests. Nobody from local community came, which was again - disappointing. Nevertheless, discussion was useful and interesting. Since Slovenia entered the EU, we discussed about issue of EU. In the evening the final party begun and it lasted till the small hours. The next morning we packed stuff in the van and went home tired.

On the meeting after the camp, we concluded that it all went great in organization, considering the number of people involved in it, the means we managed to collect, and amount of work we did. This was very good and useful experience for the next camp, especially because it was the first No-border camp in Croatia.

from: http://belgrade.indymedia.org/news/2004/05/1012.php, published on 18 May 2004.