George, 28, Romania
His personal experience with Erasmus+ started in 2015. Till now he was in 10 projects – 9 youth exchanges and 1 training course by mistake. It was by mistake because he didn’t see in the infopack that the project is Training course, he just saw the topic and he liked it (Nutrition). He likes youth exchanges more than training courses. So basically before this project George was stressed because of the covid situation and he didn’t know if this project is going to happen. He likes to travel, to meet new people, to make new connections. George likes Erasmus+ projects because he is travelling almost for free and he is feeling that he is part of Europe.
This is the second time when he is in Bulgaria. He has a friend in Plovdiv who he visited before the project started. He didn’t know the people from Romanian team before the project.
He was in projects in Bulgaria (now is the second time), Cyprus, Turkey (two times), Czech Republic, France (two times), Poland and Greece. After each project he feels good and he is returning home with new friends, new feelings in himself and new knowledge. For him Erasmus+ is a very big opportunity because every project get together different people from different countries that they have different cultures, thoughts and different knowledge.
Anna, 19, Italy
Her personal experience started in September 2020 in Pompeii, Italy with Ferdinando (Active Youth for Europe). She was in two projects there and now she is for the first time abroad for an Erasmus+ project. She wants to continue with the projects because she loves to meet new people, to make new connections and for her this is a very good opportunity to know something new. She has friends from another projects and they are in connection now. For her, projects combines new friendships, new knowledge and fun. She was one year in USA and the language it’s not a problem for her but she see in Erasmus+ projects big opportunity for everyone to improve their English.
Lilly, 28, Bulgaria
Lily is a “veteran” of Erasmus+ projects.
She discovered this world back in 2018 when she participated in her first project, in North Macedonia. Since then, she’s been to a total of 15 countries, in 20+ projects(Youth Exchanges and Training Courses). Of course, with all this experience, she is, usually, the group leader of the Bulgarian team when participating in Youth Exchanges. Also, Lilly has her own NGO and she has an approved funding from Erasmus+ for a project that she will organize to help local differently-abled people. Going into the specifics, the best project for her took place also in Bansko, in November 2020. She liked it so much because the organizer was a great guy – his name is Georgi, you might know him from the current project that we are all in, the topic was amazing and the people were also amazing – all of them full of positivity. On the other side, she had very few bad experiences in projects. Only two were mentioned: one in UK, which was a Youth Exchange where the program was very strict, the organizers were not that nice and they had not free time; the second was in North Macedonia and the main cause of this negative experience for her were the accommodation facilities, which were horrible(e.g.: no hot water available). About the current project, Lilly has stated that she likes it, of course, and the main reason for this is that the organizers are doing a good job, as always. The topic, European Solidarity, is also something that she likes about the project since her master’s degree is about International Relations and has a thesys is about Western Balkans between EU and Russia after the separation of Yugoslavia.
Weronika, 23, Poland
Weronika is a lovely person from Western Poland. This is her very first Erasmus+ international project and I, personally, was very happy to hear how much she enjoys it.
Before going any further, I also need to give special thanks to her friend, Natalia, for convincing Weronika to join the Polish team for this project. As stated before, Weronika’s personal experience in this project was very positive/and I will list below a couple of reasons for that:
• Erasmus+ learning projects are completely different from the formal type of learning that she is used to from school and university. Erasmus is never boring since it uses non-formal methods of learning, so this was a big plus for her
• The leader of the Polish team, Michal, is experienced with project and she trusts him 100% even though they did not know each other personally before the exchange.
• The accommodation is also nice since the hotel provides us with the facilities that we need to have a beneficial learning experience here, all paid by the European Commission.
On the other side of things, the only thing that Weronika regrets is that she has not started to go to Erasmus+ projects earlier. However, when the time will come, you will definitely see here again in a project near you.
Aleks, 32, Latvia
Aleksandrs is quite exeprience in the field of Erasmus + program. His organization is one of the most active once in Latvia. He is both sending and hosting participants for different projects all around European Union. He is proffesional trainer and facilitator of projects and he works with many european organizations. Aleks was a great add to the project with his experience, attatude, knowladge and skills.
