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The idea of Neighbors’ Day was born 20 years ago in the heads of young Parisians who became fed up with people growing apart from each other and deteriorating social bonds. The celebration idea is very simple – on that day everyone can create an opportunity so that neighbors can switch to first-name terms, to talk to each other, to get to like each other, to share experiences.
Celebrations are organized throughout Europe, also in Poland. In Warsaw, on one of the tenement houses in the city center flags are flying with first names. Each of them belongs to a concrete person living there. The activity is to encourage people to open up to each other, to get to know others, and to switch to first-name terms – to TY. The Life Director also joined this activity:
I like to believe that what I do on a daily basis has influence on people. I receive a lot of emails that my films are used, e.g. as educational materials in schools. This time I would like to tell a story about restoring faith in people, and the activity of Switching to First-Name Terms fits in perfectly with this idea.
In recent days Daniel Rusin ran a survey asking how we, Poles, treat our neighbors – what are our relations with them, what we like and appreciate them for, and what annoys us about them.
I hope that this material will inspire others to celebrate Neighbors’ Day together, e.g. with Mr. Jan living at no. 5, or with this nice couple from upstairs. Because unfortunately, it turns out that very often we don’t even know the first-names of people we see every day,” says Life Director. “Let’s use the excuse of Neighbors’ Day and just switch to first-name terms, to TY, – in the elevator, on the staircase, in front of the block of flats. And maybe it will turn out that the most annoying neighbor will become our best buddy to watch games with?
