Valery Andreev
During my first youth exchange program, I had two amazing weeks in Cyprus. There I found a lot of new friends and had a wonderful experience. Firstly, when we met each other at the camp we spent some fun time to learn each other's names, I struggled with some of them.
The next morning we started slowly to go into the Human Rights topic and there I learned a lot of new things, for example, the importance to respect each other's values. Later we met Yasin (a person from Somalia) who was very polite and funny. I spent a lot of my time with him. We listened to music, shared interesting cultural stories and spoke a lot about football. In the middle of the week, we created a lot of stories and scripts for our future movies. My team was very diverse, we had people from different countries (Armenia, Egypt, Estonia, Greece, and others). We spent long days to create and edit our future movie.
The day when our movie was about to be presented, we went to Limassol, where we had a wonderful time. I spent half of the day teaching one of the participants to swim and then we walked together around the city. The next day was the big day when we presented our movies to the citizens of Dimes and afterwards, we had an amazing farewell party. where everyone participates and have fun. The last day came very quickly and we all were sad because we knew that we never would see each other together again.
During the last night, we celebrated Oscar’s birthday party and we had an amazing time together. Our group stayed in Larnaca for two more nights where we met the Armenian and Egypt groups again. We went to Nicosia, where we were astonished by the cultural difference between the two parts of the city. We spent the last day at the amazing beach in Ayia Napa. The experience I had in Cyprus gave me new knowledge and friend but also motivated me to continue being active European citizens and to look for new youth exchange opportunities.
Savina Tsvetkova
My name is Savina Tsvetkova and I am from Blagoevgrad.
The youth Exchange “StoryTell A right” brought together people from Estonia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Greece, Armenia, Egypt and Cyprus. I learnt so much about their cultures, the way of living and the way human rights are spread. When you meet some people who live in countries far from yours you think they are very different from you but actually I found out we are all the same just with different unique features. I gained so much knowledge about human rights in different countries.
Through many sessions and games, I learnt a lot about people’ history and stories connected to the human rights that changed my perspective of life. We spent most of the days in a small, cosy village called “Dymes”. We recorded many videos and interviewed some locals who we asked about their opinion on human rights. I learnt about some editing apps and all the videos turned out amazing. Also, we spent a day in Limassol, we had a lot of fun and did some city game tasks. I gained knowledge I will never forget and made so many wonderful friends who I will keep in touch with.
My name is Manuela Minchewa and I am 20-years-old architecture student from Sofia. I participated in Erasmus plus youth exchange in Dymes, Cyprus 2-11 September this year. For me, this was the first project and I was really excited, maybe and a little bit scared. In this exchange were young people from Armenia, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Egypt, Estonia, Greece and Ukraine.
Different cultures, traditions but from the first day we already loved each other. We were talking about everything that interested us, learns a lot about other culture in intercultural nights, learns about human rights in one very interesting way with many practical games.
For me, the biggest experience was to foreign language. At school, I wasn’t really good with English, but in the project, I went out from my comfort zone, talk in English and Rusian, I feel comfortable, because every one of us makes mistakes, but we can communicate freely and understand each other perfectly.
The accommodation wasn’t a 5star hotel, but the emotion of being in one room with 5-6 girls from other countries was unique. Night talks, exchange makeup things, doing hairstyles. Every moment in the project was memorable and I am sure that this wasn’t my last because it gives many opportunities to learn, to improve foreign languages, to meet other cultures, different people, make friendships, travel almost free and have fun.
Vasilena Panayotova
Blink of an eye. That’s how quickly time passes when you are on a project. The emotions, the fun, the laughs, that’s everything that you will remember when you look back and I honestly tell you that’s gonna be enough for you to go and apply for a thousand more projects.
From the first evening, we began getting to know each other, making sure that every name was remembered, that everyone was acknowledged that they were present and there. Introduction to the main topic of the project was next. Human Rights workshops began on the second and third days, with different types of games and quests only to be followed by the Storytelling part of the project. Amazing classes were caught on video making, photography and editing by both the organizers and some of the participants. As we were separated with our teams, we prepared a short film concerning some of the major human rights, that we presented before the whole village of Dymes, where we were staying in. If you look at that place on the map, make sure you don’t miss it because it’s that small, but I assure you that it’s the perfect place to create friends and learn new amazing skills.
As I take my time to write this short article about my staying in Cyprus, I want to emphasize how grateful I am. Grateful for all the people I met there, all the lifelong friendships that began there. I dearly miss everyone and hope to meet again. If you are wondering whether to apply for your first project or your next – don't. Just do it. Make sure that you take every opportunity to be an active European citizen just like I will.
