Arts Lab 6.0: Soukaina Sekkan - Month 5

We started this month with our residency in the school. Nikola and I made sure to begin each day with a different energizer. On the first day, we focused on sketching and drawing, asking the kids to imagine a better future for someone who doesn’t have the essentials to live, someone without enough resources. We gave them complete freedom to express themselves, then we all shared our ideas, discussed them, and together decided what we wanted to put on the wall. Once we had the final concept, we sketched the design.

The next day, we started painting. Since we had a lot of kids, we split them into two teams. One team played games with me, while the other painted. The winners of the games got to pick someone from the painting team to switch places with, so in the end, everyone had a chance to paint. We kept this system for all three days before heading to our midterm training.

On January 19, we arrived at the hotel in the morning after taking the night train from Târgu Frumos. We spent the day walking around Bucharest, grabbing coffee, and exploring. I don’t know why, but I didn’t like Bucharest that much, I preferred Iaşi. Our first dinner at the hotel was good, but the real highlight of every meal was the water machine. We were all obsessed with it.

After dinner, we walked around the old town and the big parks. We walked a lot. The training started the next day. Each day, we had different activities, but it felt like we were mostly doing them for ourselves, the trainers were just facilitating. The second day was much more fun because we went outside to explore the city. My team, “Dora’s Team,” decided to film videos as if we were Dora the Explorer. We also interviewed people on the street, asking about the must-visit places in Bucharest. Later, we had to record a personal interview, talking about why we were in Romania and reflecting on our experiences so far.

That night, we had a girls’ night—playing Uno, gossiping, and eating. The next day started with presentations from our treasure hunt. Later, each team taught something based on their own experiences, so we got to learn about different topics—from personality types to self-expression. But the best part of the day was ice skating! We had so much fun. Yeah, of course, I fell two or three times, but it was worth it.

The next day, we were all excited for our girls’ trip to Braşov. Our train was around 1 PM, so after checking out, we visited the MINA immersive museum. It was so inspiring—it made me want to create more, express more, and just do more.

When we arrived in Braşov, we found our cozy little house. It had almost everything we needed… or at least it looked like it did. We struggled to boil water because the kettle didn’t work, but we figured it out. I didn’t expect it to be that cold—there was snow everywhere.

We went for a walk in the center, which was about 20 minutes from our house. I don’t know why, but it gave me Italian vibes. We had dinner at a weirdly luxurious but cringy restaurant—the food was good, though.

The next day was all about discovering Braşov’s must-visit places, and we had so much fun seeing the whole city from above. The day after, we visited Bran Castle and spent the whole day there, making lots of memories. Sadly, our trip ended the next day, and we took the bus back to Târgu Frumos.

Back home, we continued our school residency. The kids painted another section of the mural, drawing their vision of a bright future with a shining star. They said they wanted their future to be the brightest.

Then, we had to focus on our own artworks. I created two paintings—“The Accusation” and “The Liberation.” In the first, I tried to show how the world sees Romani people today, and in the second, I wanted to show who they really are. On February 2, we had our exhibition, and it went well.

On February 6—my birthday!—we made a cake together and had so much fun. On February 10, we had our “Šecknight,” where we cooked together. Nikola did an amazing job, and we all loved the food. Of course, I won the Kahoot game (because obviously, I had to). Nikola is not just my bestie, but also the best roommate I could ever ask for.

The next day, we visited a school in Târgu Frumos, which has a museum inside. We also met the kids, since this residency was different from what we were used to. Then came the Turkish night—Sinem did an incredible job organizing it. We learned Turkish dances and had so much fun.

And now, we’re still working on our residency with the teenagers, and we’re so excited to see the final results!

Report written by Soukaina Sekkan, she's from Morocco and she's one of the 14 volunteers participating in Arts Lab 6.0, a project co-funded by the European Union through the European Solidarity Corps program.