I didn’t know what to expect when I set off for the Basque Country. Aleksandra, my colleague from Creative Station, was already part of the STOG story — last autumn she took part in the exchange in Tunceli, in the heart of Kurdistan, and came back full of impressions about women building cooperatives, about mountains, about something she called “an economy with a soul.” She told me: “You have to experience it yourself.”
And then I arrived in Oiartzun.
A small Basque village surrounded by green hills, with the ABARKA office that feels more like a home than a workspace. At the door, I was greeted by the smell of coffee, baklava, and laughter in four languages. Around the table sat women from Turkey, Moldova, North Macedonia, Spain — and me, from Serbia, with a laptop and a question: where do I fit in all of this?
The answer came faster than I expected.
At first glance, “Stronger Together” looks like a typical Erasmus+ project — partnerships, activities, reports. But when you sit down at the table with women from the Zembul cooperative, who built their cooperative in Tunceli from scratch, you realise this is not a project about paperwork. This is a project about dignity.
About a woman in rural Turkey or the Basque Country or Serbia having the right to live from her own work, in her own way, in a community that supports her.
Solidarity economy — a concept I knew from books — here had faces, hands, and life stories.
One of the things that moved me most was how open everyone was. We were not “guests” in any formal sense. From the very first moment, we were part of the circle. Innovation Cafe methodology, Fish Bowl discussions, Knowledge Island Route — everything was designed so that everyone had a voice. And everyone used it.
At Creative Station, we come from the world of creative approaches to learning at all levels. Our job is to find ways to tell stories, to visualise ideas, to carry messages forward. But here I learned something no digital tool can replace: that the strongest bonds are built at the table, over pintxos and Basque cider, when someone from Moldova talks about their village and a woman from Tunceli nods — because she understands. Without translation.
Hondarribia, with its medieval walls and its view of France across the Bidasoa river, is a perfect mirror of this project. A border that connects, not divides. The Basques have known this for centuries. And we felt it in just two days.
I’m returning to Serbia with concrete ideas — Creative Station wants to continue this collaboration, to help with digital dissemination of results, to perhaps write something new, something bigger, together with ABARKA and the other partners. But above all, I’m returning with the feeling that Erasmus+ programmes, when done like this — with heart, with the right people, with community at the centre — truly change something.
Aleksandra was right. I had to experience it myself.
Creative Station, Serbia
Guest partner on the “Stronger Together” (STOG) project
Erasmus+ KA210-ADU · March 2026
