Teaching Tolerance through English: Forging Friendships across Baltic Borders

U.S. Embassy Tallinn hosted its first “Teaching Tolerance through English” Camp from August 12-18, 2013. Twenty-five boys and girls aged 10 to 14 years from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania came together for one week to learn about diversity, how to counter bullying, and how to act as a positive force in their communities. While campers’ native languages were Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian, all activities were conducted in English. This year’s was the third camp in a series in the Baltics, with the two previous having been held in Latvia.  

Lithuanian students teach fellow Estonian and Latvian campers about their culture

Five Lithuanian students—two fifth graders and three sixth graders—from Pumpenai Secondary School attended the event, along with Ms. Olga Daugene, who provided instruction on English as a Foreign Language. They, along with their peers from Latvia and Estonia, engaged in an interactive session with U.S. Ambassador to Estonia Jeffrey Levine, through which they gained an insight into American culture, even learning to make S’mores around a campfire.

Tolerating the Intolerable: Lessons Learned from Dr. David Frick's Lectures in Lithuania

Dr. David Frick with book Kith, Kin, and Neighbors

Last week, Dr. David Frick, a professor of History and Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California Berkeley, visited Lithuania to deliver a series of lectures based on his book Kith, Kin, and Neighbors: Communities and Confessions in Seventeenth-Century Vilno.

Dr. Frick began his lecture, titled “Tolerating the Intolerable: Coexistence in Seventeenth-Century Vilnius” with the following address:

To say that early modern Vilnius was a multi-confessional city risks understating the variety of competing and overlapping demands that religions, cultures, languages, and ties of ethnicity made upon individual Vilnans; it also obscures the means by which co-existence in the city was made feasible.  In my comments today, I will attempt to locate Vilnius on the map of confessional Europe:  to assess the range of its multi-confessionalism; to reveal some of the manners and mechanisms its citizens developed for encouraging, facilitating, and sometimes imposing toleration among its inhabitants; and to place the city on a spectrum of the solutions found in contemporary European communities for addressing the problems that arose when members of more than one confession attempted to live in one city—from exclusion at one extreme to types of inclusion at the other.

In the course of an hour, he took me and the other audience members back to 1665, to a place known then as Vilno, a modestly-sized city populated by Poles, Lithuanians, Germans, Ruthenians, and Tatars (in addition to some numbers of Scots, Italians, and other immigrants). These people worshipped in 23 Catholic, nine Uniate, one Orthodox, one Calvinist and one Lutheran church, one chief synagogue, and one mosque; they spoke Polish, Ruthenian, German, Yiddish, Lithuanian, and some Tatar; and they prayed in Latin, Church Slavonic, Hebrew, Aramaic, and a little Arabic.

For me, and I’m sure for many of you reading this post as well, such a city is not unique. We, after all, live in a globalized society. But imagine yourself in 1665. For that matter, imagine yourself in a royal city in 1665. English Parliament was in the process of enacting the Five Mile Act, seeking to enforce conformity to the established Church of England. The Portuguese were battling Spain to retain their independence. In what is now present-day India, the Mughals were fighting the Maratha Empire for territorial gains. And yet, within all of this madness, there existed the city of Vilno.

BETTY tours Lithuania!

I am very excited to share with Lithuania that the band BETTY is in Lithuania to play two concerts and to do a workshop on empowering girls and women. BETTY, an all-girl pop-rock band, is coming on July 24-29, and yes, they'll be here for Baltic Pride week.

On the 25th, BETTY will offer the workshop titled "Everybody is Somebody!" This is an inspirational workshop on empowering women and girls. Enjoy great music followed by a talk on the subject and an open discussion with the band. You can participate and join in this workshop this day at Vilnius Chamber Theater located at Konstitucijos pr.23, Korp. B. 

On the 26th you can catch BETTY performing at SOHO nightclub. The doors to this show will open at 21:00, the show will begin at 22:00, and will end until 23:00. Please feel free to stay after the concert to meet with BETTY, get an autograph, and take a picture with the band!

Finally BETTY will arrive in Palanga on July 28th. They will play at Club Ramybe The show will start at 18:00 and continue until 19:30. 

This American band defends the rights of women and spreads the message of tolerance in different social circles. They have also participated in hundreds of charitable events for the fight against poverty. The group has won two Emmys and two BMI awards. 

We are so excited to bring BETTY to Lithuania to spread the message of tolerance to all! We hope to see you at the shows and workshops to commemorate the week of Baltic Pride!