It will not be easy to describe, what has proven to be, the most intense summer of my life in one single experience story, but I will definitely do my best!
From July 5th until August 27th 2011 I was in Romania in a city called Craiova for an AIESEC development internship. I was participating in a project developed by AIESEC Craiova called 'Learn to Change the Future'. This project was developed for local high school students and aimed at mainly ecological subjects. Other topics like for instance cultural awareness were also covered. The project had two main features, namely workshops and outside activities. The internship had 7 workshops in total with topics ranging from a healthy way of living to global warming and from social strategies and ethics to sustainable development. I was not alone in this project, as a matter of fact there were 14 trainees accompanying me! It was up to us 15 trainees to develop and prepare the workshops. We were completely free to determine the content of the workshop and the message we wanted to bring across. I loved the fact that we received so much freedom in this; it gave us the opportunity to transmit our own personal messages in the trainings which made them far more genuine and sincere. The earlier mentioned activities were more informal than the workshop and were always held outside. Among the activities there was a bicycle tour, a treasure hunt in the park, the cleaning of the riverside, a recycling challenge were the students had to make clothes out of recyclable materials and so much more!
I am truly amazed with AIESEC Craiova and more than thankful for everything they arranged for us trainees! As I mentioned before we were with 15 trainees from 9 different countries (Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Greece, the Netherlands, Brazil, Egypt and Iran), all 15 of us were staying together in a big house in the centre of Craiova. There were 4 bedrooms we had to share, one big living room, a gigantic beautiful garden, two bathrooms, and a kitchen. In the house we had everything we needed and if there was something missing or wrong there were always AIESECers willing and able to help us.
I was asked to also write something about the culture in this experience story, but that is very difficult for me! Together with the Romanians we were a mixture of 10 different nationalities and cultures and I think it is fair to say that we developed our own trainee culture. This is inevitable when you live together in one house and when you are constantly together and have to share almost everything. This culture however was great! Everybody was very open, friendly and enthusiastic; the consequence of this was that we soon became a very close group of
friends. Apart from us 15 trainees there were almost always some of the local AIESECers around in our house. Our house was a small 5 minutes of walking away from the AIESEC office so the AIESECers stopped by very regularly to help us out or simply have some fun with us! The local AIESECers joined us in our activities, but also very actively involved us in their activities! We went to their parties, made a big camping trip together to the seaside and I participated in my first AIESEC conference. This conference was a Local Motivational Seminar for AIESEC Craiova and for me it was my first real introduction to the AIESEC culture. It was a great conference with some inspiring sessions, teambuilding and a lot of great parties! My favorite party was the gypsy theme party where everybody dressed up to look at their gypsy best (see picture)!
Apart from having an amazing summer I also learned a lot of valuable lessons this summer that I will definitely carry with me the coming years. Apart from developing my professional skills such as making presentations, actually presenting them and arranging activities, I learned the most on the side of people skills. Being so close with all these different people from different cultures really made me more aware of who I am and also of whom I want to be. This sounds really weird, but it is true. These people helped me to look at things from a new and fresh point of view and this was extremely important for me. I learned so much about ways of communicating and cultural differences. Even the smallest things like an inappropriate joke that unintentionally insulted somebody turned out to be big learning points me. It is hard to express how valuable this experience was for me. One thing however is sure: I will cherish the memories of this summer forever!
I am going to conclude this experience story with a small word of advice to all of you. If I am not mistaken AIESEC Craiova will have another edition of Learn to Change the Future next summer. So if you happen to be looking for an awesome project, an amazing experience and a fantastic
