‘I found myself. It was hard to do but 100% worth it.’
We spent 10 days at a wellbeing retreat in Copes, Latvia as part of an Active Rainbow project. It was a multicultural
experience with the main objectives being self growth and learning. ‘Come Out and Play was an opportunity and a safe place for us.’
The project was very eye-opening for many of us since addressing topics of mental health or sharing our experiences as being part of the LGBTQ+ community is still considered inappropriate or even a taboo in most of our countries. We spent our days discovering and exploring new things about ourselves. We learned many new ways of taking care of ourselves through a variety of different activities such as workshops addressing topics like identity, self care, mental health etc. An important part of our learning process were also debates and talks with different people from the group, coming from different cultures, backgrounds and experiences. The topics addressed were hard, but together we managed to find peace of mind and relax through activities such as cooking, singing, dancing, watching Eurovision etc.
‘We had to learn how to respect ourselves and put ourselves as deserving of being a priority of our own wellbeing.’
We are very grateful that we were able to participate in this project, self-reflect, grow from this experience and most importantly, share our new knowledge with our community in Slovenia.