Have you ever heard of Eskisehir? Besides being a lovely city located in Turkey, it was the host of a Youth Exchange, which took place between 8th- 15th of March. It focused on raising awareness about one of the current issues faced nowadays: refugees' crisis.
"First of all, I have to say that the project was amazing. We discussed a lot about the refugees problem, which was the main topic of this project. The location of this youth exchange was Eskisehir, a really nice place, which is considered the student city of Turkey. We stood at a lovely hotel, with great conditions. We visited the city during our free time and I was impressed by the "Disney Castle".
"I must say that everyone was peaceful and kind with us, even the strangers in the clubs were really excited to meet and talk with us. Except of all the entertainment that we were lucky to have, I got to say that I learned a lot from this experience, mostly on the refugee's topic."
"The project was exactly how I expected, the theme of the project helped us to debate the refugees problem and because of that I became more aware about the situation. Our accommodation was perfect and Eskisehir is a really beautiful place with friendly people. Trainers did their job, they helped us all the time and made the project to be perfect."
We all know the saying people make the place. There was no better place than this youth exchange to illustrate this.
"The other participants were really active during all the activities, but also they were friendly people as well. We had a lot of interesting debates about the refugees crisis, and we thought about some solutions for this huge problem. We also had the opportunity to visit a refugee center, to meet some people from an organization who are helping these refugees a lot. Of course, we met some refugees as well, we talked with them and we understood how huge is this matter. In the end, it was a great experience that I will never forget."
"The trainers were pretty organised. They prepared a schedule for this project, but also they had some beautiful suprises for us, for instance, one day we went to a turkish restaurant for their intercultural night and we ate their amazing dishes. Now I'm in love with the turkish food."
"Our lovely organizators keept us focused all the time with some lovely energizers and this was a really good way to make us learn faster. We played games designed to see the bigger picture over the refugee problem, other games were fun based, but with the same aim and we also made a project from where we were forced to push our limits and create an amazing plan to take down the refugee problem by ourselves. As on of my Lithuanian colleagues said, the change starts with me. This is a line I was following for a while and it is great to see that I am not the only one feeling this way and that there are PLENTY more to belive that they can actually change something in good. This project was truly a confidence boost and EXTRA, the trips were amazing and I truly believe that those were moments you experience only once in a life time."
After all, it is all about impact of our actions.
"This project helped me to be more aware about the things that refugees are being through right now and it had a good impact on my personal development because I learned more information about the situation,I learned how to help them and how to make the people change their beliefs."
"After this project, I'm more talkative person, I improved a little bit my English and I have a lot of new friends. I feel that I'm more involved in the society problems. I understood how difficult is to be a refugee and how hard life can be. I can accept the cultural and religious diversity better than before. I learned a lot of new words in other languages, for example in Turkish. I found out a lot of interesting information about other countries. I' m more confident in myself. I'm happier."
"Personally, I was able to see the human nature at it finest and that there isn't that much of a different between us, the romanians, and other nationalities. I learned more about myself and the way to interact with others, while making new friends. Professionally, I have to say that I learned that if you plan something, you have to keep on the schedule and always have quick solution if your schedule is not on point. An extraculicular activity that we had, thanks to Karl, is a trip he organized. This experience added even more flavor to my experience, since I learned that you can make the best out of something by yourself and that there is always something that you can do extra to make the most out of something."
