The openness of the borders in the broad sense of these words is one of the important foundations of the modern European Union and its importance cannot be overestimated. Another basic principle is mobility, in particular mobility of young people – young people get support from the state – students, scientists, and professionals – able to take advantage of the opportunities and discover new countries, cultures and meet peers and like-minded people from neighboring countries.
One of these opportunities is the Erasmus+ youth exchanges. The recent exchange in which the European Club came forward as a partner and sent 5 persons to participate took place in the capital of Spain, Madrid. Young people from Ukraine, Spain, Poland and Greece participated in it. And although our country has not yet joined the European Union, fortunately, Ukrainian organizations can be part of such activities and send participants.
Although each exchange has a unique topic and work order, the exchange in Madrid aimed to get participants acquainted with the specific areas of work that the European Commission, the EU’s highest executive body, focuses on. Each individual topic was disclosed by different national teams – which allowed them to look at a wide range of issues and add national perspectives to their work.
An important aspect of such exchanges is a cultural exchange. The fact of communicating with representatives of other countries makes it possible not just get closer to the unfamiliar culture, but also to study the positive and negative experience and to approach the development of a common political, economic and social association more qualitatively, which will benefit all the participants.
(Kyrylo Iekymov)
Thanks to NGO European club I was lucky to participate in youth exchange in Madrid. The topics which were discussed on the project are among main priorities of European Union’s work. Topics are: investments and saving jobs, ecology and climate change, migration and human rights protection. All these topics are important and actual. But, in my personal opinion, it’s not enough to spend even not one day for each topic. But even so superficial acquaintance is very useful for personal development. It gives you more information to get something new and to think deeper. As a home work each team from each country, Spain, Ukraine, Poland, Greece had to discover one of topic. And then we got task to prepare presentation for the rest of participants.
Besides informational part we were engaged in some team building activities and different games. And also we had wonderful competition which included high heels running, climbing on the benches and under the tables and walking with closed eyes. It is really funny to look how guy’s running and dancing on the high heels. Every evening we discovered each other cultural and national traditions. The participants brought different traditional food, showed some videos about own country and all together we played in funny traditional games and tried to dance national dances. Also we had visit do European Commission representation. Every one of us could ask some questions about European Union and it’s policy. At one day our project visited special guest. It was Jake, immigrant from Cameroon. He told us about difficulties in his life and personal reasons to immigrate to Europe. During this meeting we had seen photo exhibition about something common and differences between people. In general the project was nice. It was informative and funny.
P.S. for tourist’s attention. Spanish nut sweets are delicious. It can be nice tasty souvenir. People who are working in Madrid Airport do their work excellent. And because of it would be better for you to drink all water from your bottle. It will save 20 minutes of your lifetime and you’re nervous… Don’t repeat my mistakes. And don’t be surprised if workers of international Madrid Airport will propose you to speak Spanish, because you are in Madrid. And it can be enough reason for them not to know English… And if you visit Spain in cold period, don’t forget to take your warm closes. Because when sun is shining it is quite warm and you can walk only in jeans and sweater. But after sunset warm jacket, scarf and hat will be very useful for you.
(Alina Shevela)
For me, youth exchange was useful for several reasons:
1. I am better acquainted with the structure of the European Union. Also got acquainted with the main priorities of its policy.
2. Thanks to communication with representatives of other countries, I began to feel better the community of people, and also got acquainted with other cultures.
3. Improved the level of my English.
4. It was very interesting to communicate with a representative of the European Commission, and an immigrant from Africa.
5. I took some lessons for training and events from other participants.
(Maksym Makukha)
I never wrote a similar post in the Internet. Now I want to share not only the bright colors of a foreign country, but also a bit of those emotions that I felt and now I try to preserve at least with letters under the pictures. Traveling is extremely easy. Getting to know is easy. Smile at the women in the toilet, because someone come not to the cabin, but to Astral it is easy. Not knowing Spanish, asking for help is not easy, but funny. Even using the subway in Madrid is easy (and I say this as a person who can be lost in the center of my own city). Everything seems very easy, when it with sincere communication. The motto of Ukrainians is to be coconuts of own comfort world, being afraid of volunteer proposals, listening to fictitious stereotypes, hesitating to be unique, not having the desire to smile for nothing, but dreaming of a better life in Europe. But it’s not there, it hides in the soul of each of us.
(Kateryna Tretiakova)
