Last December I had the opportunity of being in my first Erasmus+ Youth Exchange.
This exchange took place in Renteria (Basque Country) under the slogan «Our Voice, our choice, our community». I chose being part of this exchange in large part because of the site where it was going to take place: Northern Spain has a lot of history, geographically it is impressive and the people are wonderful. Undoubtedly, this site where the exchange took place was a plus of emotion when launching me into this adventure.
On the one hand, the issue to be discussed during the exchange, climate change, attracted me without hesitation. It was a matter that was going to be discussed a few days after our exchange at the Climate Summit held in Madrid. From the days we spent there, we shared our opinions, we showed the rest of the group important issues that had happened or were happening in our different countries, through non-informal methods such as performances, “teatro del oprimido”, mimics and different role plays. During the exchange, we were also aware of how we were recycling: we learned that compost or organic material must go into compostable bags if not recycling this material does not make sense. We also realized that a lot of food was left over and we were not sure if it was reused so we decided not to return the trays of food that were left over and put them the next day along with the new menú. Thereby we managed to reuse a lot of food that otherwise it would be thrown away (according to health regulations).
After the exchange I have been more attentive to individual and collective initiatives such as «cleaning the mountain», recycling in the work area or urban garden projects.
On the other hand, what had made the experience unforgettable was the pleasure of meeting wonderful, conscious and creative people. I can say that this exchange brought me great friendships, possible collaborators for projects in a not too distant future and especially meeting incredible organizers that made this experience possible.
So pleasant and good was my first experience with the Erasmus+ Youth Exchange that I am going to repeat and at the end of February we are going to Marrakech with the Crossing Borders project on healthy lifestyle.
Eva Caceres (Spain)