NOORTEVAHETUS
Name of the project: “HIKE – Hike to include, knit and empower” Youth Exchange
Date: 19th-30th August, 2024
City/Country: Montella (Naples), Italy
What was the main topic of the project?
Lili-Ann Bürkland – This program was about how to promote social inclusion through hiking and outdoor life.
Karolin Tsuiman – Inclusion, community-building, empowerment.
Rodion Krupin – Promote cultural diversity and tolerance among young people across various European countries by addressing the pressing issues of discrimination and marginalization.
Karmen Laidre – Multiculturism, diversity, inclusion, discrimination, sustainability.
Sten Hendrik Oja – How to fight against discrimination and separation of people.
Kadi Kõpper – Hiking and learning how to live together with different people.
What were the biggest learning moments of the event for you?
Lili-Ann Bürkland – How to take different perspectives and how to be more active in situations of impression.
Karolin Tsuiman – The biggest learning moment for me was to learn how a group dynamic and bond can be that strong, that living together with 40 people for almost two weeks can be one of the most enjoyable times ever. I learned a lot about compassion, compromise and how to overcome interpersonal, intercultural differences.
Rodion Krupin – “Sharing is caring”. So many people showed me that nothing scary will happen if I open myself to others.
Karmen Laidre – I learned that it does not matter where you are from, all of us have something incomin.
Sten Hendrik Oja – Living together for two weeks with people from very different cultures, at first it was difficult to understand some of their views and the way of life. Later in the project when talking to them the reason of the differences became clearer, and it made a lot of sense. It is said that it is easy to hate somebody from distance and hard from close range. I think this project helped me relaize that people from different cultures in their core nature are still alike.
Kadi Kõpper – The biggest learning moment for me was that we were hiking with a very big group so we had to learn to understand each other needs and it helped us to bond very much. Another thing was that we had no mobile service so it was very nice to learn to live without our phones and build a community.
Do you have any plans to continue being active in the field? If yes, in which way?
Lili-Ann Bürkland – In some ways yes. I am interested in social science and I believe I can use what I learned during the project in my future studies or work.
I really like this kind of opportunities and I plan to continue to be active in this field. I am planning on educating myself through other projects and when I’m done with school would also love to do some volunteering word in some organisations.
Karolin Tsuiman – I do plan on continuing with being active in the Erasmus+ field, to educate myself and in return educate others around me. I’m interested in participating in more youth exchanges as well as experience training courses and perhaps a ESC service a little later.
Rodion Krupin – Yes! I want to participate more in the Erasmus+ project and meet more fascinating people worldwide.
Karmen Laidre – I do not know yet.
Sten Hendrik Oja – I am not sure yet, this project was very interesting and developed me as a person alot, but right now I have too much different projects that take too much time. Spending two weeks abroad, made me also enjoy the life in estonia. When life gets a bit slower and boring, I would deffenetly take a chance to do a similar project.
Kadi Kõpper – I really like this kind of opportunities and I plan to continue to be active in this field. I am planning on educating myself through other projects and when I’m done with school would also love to do some volunteering word in some organisations.
Would you recommend this experience to your friends? If yes, why? If no, why not?
Lili-Ann Bürkland – Yes, because youth exchanges are amazing opportunities to learn something new about yourself, others and develope cultural awareness. Furthermore through youth exchanges participants can learn more in depth about the topics of the project.
Karolin Tsuiman – I would definitely recommend this experience to my friends. Being a part of Erasmus+ and experiencing all kinds of environments, people and topics is something that helps you grow as a person but it also helps to give back to the community and people around you because you come out of it a better person with fresh priorities.
Rodion Krupin – Of course! Such projects will acknowledge you in many exciting topics and bring you together with many awesome people.
Karmen Laidre – Yes, it was very eyeopening and I got to meet so many wonderful people.
Sten Hendrik Oja – Deffenetly I would. I already have told a lot of stories about the project to friends and they have had intrest about them. It was a full adventure. Spending two weeks with total strangers in the mountains, in the middle of nothing, and try to build a community, was something I didnt know i needed, but it was it. It made me rethink life as it is and it offers me new viewpoints in my day to day studies in International Relationship field.
Kadi Kõpper – Yes, I would recommend it very much because it is an amazing opportunity to learn things in other ways compared to school, find many many new connections across the world and get unforgettable memories.
This Project was financed by European Commission’s Erasmus + Programme
