Why you should look for Erasmus+ projects

Two months ago I went on a 10 days trip to the south of Italy in order to participate in a Youth Exchange promoted by Erasmus+, about public speech. So they have partnerships with some NGO's from different countries. These NGO's are responsible to promote and to find the number of participants required for each project. You need to apply to the project by filling in a form and then you just need to wait for the selection and check if you were chosen to participate. The best part of these kind of projects is that all the expenses are covered by the organization. So, it's a very good way to travel for free, to learn and to meet new people at the same time! The goal of these kind of projects is to give you the opportunity to learn about something on a non conventional environment.

My project was about public speech, and it was a great experience that I will always be thankful for!

So, it took place in the beautiful Serra San Bruno, a magical place where the cold is suffocated by the great hospitality from the locals! The participants of the project were people from Italy, Portugal, Spain and Romania.

Serra San Bruno

Starting from the beggining, I arrived in Lamezia airport with another portuguese member early in the morning and there was a guy from the italian organization to give us a ride to San Bruno. During the ride he told us the tale of the Serra and explained to us something about the project. 

Soon as we arrived, they took us to the local bar/caffe, to have breakfast and to meet the leader of the project, Biagio. Quickly I realized that he was a very nice guy along with the other ones that were responsible for the project. They took us to the lodge, a nice cozy place where we would share the room with someone from another nationatily, in order to create multicultural spirit and to "break the ice" faster! Once we were there, we realized we were the first ones to arrive, so Biagio invited us to have lunch on his parent's place, a kind offer that we gladly accepted it! And it was the best meal that I had there! It was a typical house from the Serra, with some homemade pasta and wine! We enjoyed the wine so much that his father offered us a bottle ! After that, Biagio took us on a small trip across the beautiful Serra San Bruno and explained to us something about it. Then, he left us at the hostel and went to pick up the other participants.On that day everyone was tired, so we met each other very quickly, we had dinner and we went to bed ... 

On the next days we always had well programmed activities. We started with some games to know each other better, the called "ice breakers", and then we started to do group actvities or works in order to learn about public speech. All the activities were very exciting and interesting, in the middle we always had coffee break with some homemade cake, coffee and fun. We always had free time for us, and we had lunch and dinner on a typical italian restaurant. After dinner we had time for us, we used to meet on the common area at the hostel, having drinks, playing games and know each other better.

It was a multicultural environment that gives you the opportunity to learn a lot with everyone's stories...

For me, the main event in this project was the radio show that we created! We split into groups, and everyone had a topic to talk about on the local radio! Yea, we participated in a real radio show in a real local radio! For me it was the experience that I enjoyed the most and that meant more to me. My group talked about the difficulties about getting an independent life after finish university, and it was amazing to compare the different realities of each country, but at the same time to glimpse some similarities. 

Serra San Bruno's Local Radio

All the countries had an "Intercultural Night", thats was about every group (portuguese, spanish, italian and romanian) talking about their countrie's traditions to the others and giving them some traditional food and drinks... Every presentations were very interesting and gave us the opportunity to learn more about each country! 

Friends

At the end of the project we also talked about our experience on the project in the front of a camera and how much it contributed for us. I felt like every activity that we participated during the week, was in order to prepare us to the radio show and to the camera talk !

We also had a free day where the organizers rented a bus for us and took us to visit the astonishing Tropea and the beautiful Pizzo!

Tropea

Pizzo

I thank myself to have been brave enough to let me go on this trip and I thank even more to the people that made this experience so wonderful ! All the participants were very nice, each one had stories to tell and I learned something from everyone that made me face the world differently! Also, I want to leave a word for the organization, everything was very well organized and all of you were very kind. I hope to see each one of you again in the future and I wish you the best ! 

Serra San Bruno

Serra San Bruno

As you can see, I had a great experience in Serra San Bruno! So, I recommend you to research about Erasmus+ projects and to have great experiences like the one I had. I wish you all great adventures !