Learn to travel, travel to learn

At DNS we travel because it provides us with an authentic understanding of the global reality. Throughout the whole programme, we learn to travel and travel to learn. To travel in a meaningful way, it is crucial to treat it as an educational process. Such an attitude is contrary to tourism or “voluntourism” and demands a lot of effort and dedication from students as well a professional guidance from the teachers.

Moreover, travelling keeps us aware of the big issues of our time, which the future generations will be dealing with. Travelling also empowers us to teach about these important issues and facilitate their resolutions together with the students.

Such a method not only ensures a holistic perspective on the world, but also provides us with opportunities to connect with people of diverse cultural backgrounds, which trains us to become tolerant teachers who dare to express solidarity with the Poor.

How we travel

As one of our slogans is “the world is our classroom”, we carry our blackboard, books, tables and chairs with us when we are travelling. In the first year – it is a bus, which allows us to slowly pass through and make our way through changing geographic zones, cultures and realities.

In the second year – it is our house in an European city, where we invite people to share, listen and learn about the world together with us.

In the third year – it is our teacher’s luggage, which represents all the knowledge we have acquired so far and ability to transfer it to the students in creative and accessible ways.

All the way throughout the programme we travel humbly, moving along with normal people, not in comfortable first class services. We learn how to investigate important matters. We learn how to understand the reality of people who are different from ourselves, and try to share the lives of people on the way. We travel with and among people and we learn from every one of them. That’s why we call it LEARN to travel, travel to learn.

Where we travel

We travel to the African continent to practice our global understanding of the world in the first year. In the second year Europe is the arena where we experience the reality of the society, which our students come from. We create individual routes for every travel and students themselves are in charge of planning and executing the travels.

We seek out the richest and the poorest, the illiterate and the educated, the religious and the atheist, the traditional and the alternative people, and use them as first hand sources of knowledge, which help us to form the picture of the teachers we want to be in the future.