A Visit to the World Exposition
How
can you explore the world exposition on one day? 80 students from all over world
took the chance from the August 11-13.
The hosting local committees in Braunschweig, Göttingen, Hannover and the "AIESEC
meets EXPO 2000" Team organised a special weekend for their guests from 39 different
countries. The tour started on Saturday morning quite early. To introduce the
concept of the world exposition to the students we organised a guided tour from
the GTZ (German Technical Co-operation).
We started in the "Global House" explaining the idea of the so called world
wide projects of the EXPO 2000. NGO's and companies who are running projects
in the field of sustainable development had to apply months before the opening
of the World Exposition. A couple of them had been selected as best practises
to present their work in Hannover, many of which are at display in the Global
House. Afterwards we continued our tour to the Africa Hall to visit a variety
of African countries in one place. This second part of the EXPO - the pavilions
- exhibits the country presentation. Afterwards we spread into small groups
to explore the different cultures from over 180 countries on our own.
Another guided tour started in the afternoon. The German Foundation for Environment
guided us through the thematic area "Environment". This third part of the World
Exposition - the thematic area - exhibits in more detail seven different sub-themes
of EXPO's topic "Humankind, Nature, Technology". Within this area we have seen
different innovations and solutions for the 21st century in the environmental
sector.
After 12 hours of walking in an area larger than 180 football fields, waiting
300 meters in line in front of the pavilions and a lot of discussions we left
the first World Exposition in Germany with a lot of new impressions, ideas and
concepts how to live more sustainably in our future.
Nina Hansen
Team "AIESEC meets EXPO 2000"