Did you know that nowadays you can travel the world for many great purposes while having the chance to meet new people? Did you know that there are some youth exchange programs that give you the opportunity to actively participate in every kind of program you can imagine, be it about food, dance, music, technology? The Greek non-governmental organization ‘United Societies of Balkans’ (USB) gave this chance to six youngsters from Greece to go to Vienna for the needs of such a program under the theme “Storytelling Through Social Media”. The Greeks together with Italy, Slovakia, FYROM, Turkey and Austria managed to co-create a wonderful week full of activities.
Mladiinfo, an Austrian also non-governmental organization, gathered 36 people from these countries and helped in the creation of the most significant experience of our lives. The Austrian team, consisted of people from Austria, Italy, Lithuania, FYROM and even America and Brazil, was there to transfer to us their knowledge about the program’s topic. Everyone was willing to teach us important and useful things about Facebook and YouTube, and gave us tips on how to use these platforms in a smart way for the benefit of our community. In today’s society, social media are taking over our lives, as everyone has a Facebook or Twitter account. That is why every participant was interested to participate in the daily activities such as to give ideas about a YouTube channel, create our own social ideas and try to recommend them to someone and to tell a story through it. For this purpose, Mladiinfo introduced us with some big active social groups that showed us the way on how to have a good start for any social idea we wish to fulfill. Everyone was very friendly, easy-going, hard-working and willing to help us.
Except for the everyday morning sessions and games we had, through which we got to know each other better, the participants had the chance to enjoy each other’s company as well as the city of Vienna itself. The schedule of the program was suitable for us to have much free time in our hand to enjoy the city all through the evening and night. Starting with an energetic and creative morning, all the teams continued this creative experience outside the walls of the hostel we stayed at, and wandered the streets of Vienna, explored its beautiful sceneries and shops and spent some intercultural time together! The most interesting intercultural event, though, was the intercultural night event, where every country got to present itself through music, pictures and food! This way, we learnt some interesting things about the other countries’ cultures, we got to “taste” the other countries and dance their dances.What is more, another activity we were very lucky to experience was the Vienna’s Pride Parade. As a multi-cultural team, we watched the parade, supported it and got encouraged by some people to fight for our rights, goals and dreams. All these moments created a very strong bond between all of us and many powerful friendships that will last for a long time.
The Greek team would like to say a big thank you to the United Societies of Balkans who gave us this wonderful opportunity to participate in this program. We are all very excited and happy that we have experienced this week, which opened the way for us for new adventures and new and true friendships. We will carry these memories with us; we will remember every single participant (or new friend) because every single one of them was like a special piece in a beautiful mosaic.
Article by Maria Markou
The project has been funded by Erasmus Plus programme by European Commission
