12 students, 2 teachers and the Pipe co-ordinator from Cesis visited Østfold this week. They went by boat from Riga-Stockholm, by bus from Stockholm-Østfold and they arrived Østfold Saturday 20.09. in the evening. Our Latvian friends stayed with Norwegian host families and they went back Thursday 25.09. in the morning.

The Norwegian participants in this youth exchange came from 2 different schools, Askim and Mysen Upper Secondary School and it was students from different classes and courses.

The program started Sunday and ended Wednesday evening. Sunday we had different outdoor activities. We visited at company in Mysen that is called "TeamKraft" and their speciality is teambuilding. The most challenging activity were to climb in a tower that is 25 meter high.

Monday we went to Oslo and visited the Ski museum in Holmenkollen and the museum of Sea and shipping. We also looked at the Viking ships and had a walk in Oslo's main street which is called "Karl Johanns gate". We passed the parlament"Stortinget" and the Kings palace, and we also had a look at the City Hall.

Tuesday and Wednesday we had workshop. The youngsters worked with the future charter of Spydeberg, Askim and Eidsberg municipality and they should end up with concrete action plans. We divided the future charter into main themes like physical environment, culture/leisure activities, marketing and business life of the community. When the students worked with the action plans they were supposed to come up with answers like: Who will be responsible to accomplish the activities in the action plans? How will the activities be accomplished? When will the activities be accomplished and what will it cost?

The students had their presentations from the workshop wednesday. The groups had good presentations, but when it comes to the contents of the action plans some groups need to work more with it. It's very important that the youngsters in Østfold and representatives from the tree municipalities have closer co-operation with each other. They have to be more concrete when it comes to set up meetings, make a concrete schedule for the action plans. The students went through the criterias for the Pipe awards for the final Expo at the last part of the day.

We had "Taco-dinner" and a party at Station Pub & Café in Mysen wednesday evening. After dinner the students had som play activities, they danced an some performed songs.

I will like to thank everybody for your participation at this youth exchange, and good luck with the further Pipe work!

by co-ordinator Christin Arnesen, Østfold