Slovak girl lost in the world or how Erasmus changed my life

Hei, I am Veronika. I came from Slovakia, but now I live in Finland. 

But how did I end up living in Finland? That is the story I am going to tell you now. 

As a young person growing up in Slovakia was not easy. I came from a divorce family and I lived with my mum. We never had a lot of money for traveling and my dreams were never to live abroad. As a teenager I got to know a lot of NGO and volunteering. That was one thing that I also took with me when I left for University. During the first year of Uni I got to know people, who were also involved in Erasmus projects. I was 21 years old when I first heard about Erasmus from them. At the time I was learning English for a long time, but just in school and it was just memorizing the words from a book, no real conversations so I didn't feel so confident to speak English or travel alone abroad to learn the language better. 

In the summer of 2015 my friends were looking for a participant for a Youth Exchange. The Youth Exchange was in the north of Poland and topic was “Handmade”. The project was with participants from Slovakia, Poland and Romania. I remember the first travel day of the project I met my Slovak group, 5 other people who I had never met before. We travelled together for 14 hours by car through almost the whole of Poland. In the beginning I was a little bit scared, as it was my first travel alone to foreign country and I didn’t know what to expect. My fears disappeared real soon after getting to the place and meeting other young people from Poland and Romania. We didn't speak the same language, some of them used Google translate or anything that worked to speak with each other, but it didn't stop us from having a great time, getting to know each other and getting to know Poland and Polish culture. The project gave me an eye-opening realization that the young people are the same everywhere. We have the same problems, ideas, hobbies and much more in common than what divides us. 

The first project was just a beginning for me with Erasmus. From 2015 when I was on the first project till the time of this article in March 2022, I was a participant on more than 30 projects in 10 countries around Europe. I was in Youth Exchanges but also in Training courses. As I got to know more people and projects through Erasmus, my participation changed too. In the beginning I was a participant, later on I chose to be a group leader. Then I became a second trainer for some projects, in some projects I was helping with organising the project or I was a trainer. I wrote 2 short term ESC projects and they were approved too. 

During my last few months at Univeristy I got a chance to be part of the Training course to become an EuroPeer. It was an international Training course for people all around Europe and it was held in Finland in the Youth Centre Marttinen. 

At the time I was still living in Slovakia and our Slovak national agency wanted to start EuroPeer programme in Slovakia so they were looking for 2 people to send for the Training course from Slovakia. In the end I was the only one who they chose to participate in the project. In the beginning of March 2018 I travelled for one week to Finland to Youth Centre Marttinen for EuroPeer training. 

We had a wonderful week and at the end of this project as it was March weather outside was at lovely -15℃. As an adventure surprise for us our last activity was bridge swing. I jumped from an old railway bridge which is 14 meters tall over a frozen river. That experience alone was an incredible and great end to our project.  

Thanks to being involved in so many projects, I always knew that I wanted to be part of the EVS (now ESC) programme later when I finished my university studies. 

During the EuroPeer Training course I remember asking local youth worker Antti if they thought of taking some EVS volunteers at some point. We talked about it and decided to speak later to see what the situation is later on. After I finished my University in May I sent a message to Antti asking if they would be interested in having me as a volunteer. Somehow everything was good to go in 2 weeks and in less than 2 months I was moving to Finland for a one year. This is not a normal process, it takes a lot of time to find a place and get accepted. I think somehow all the universe got together and made it happen for me. 

My project was called Breaking Bubbles of Locality Through Volunteering. I was living for a one year in the Youth Centre Marttinen in the small city of Virrat in the middle of Finland. In other words, in the middle of the forest in the middle of nowhere. :)

Before coming to Finland I was nowhere near being an outdoor person, if it was raining I would be inside. I don't understand till today why I chose an outdoor education centre for my project, but it changed me. In the first 2 weeks of the project I was hanging from a 12 meter climbing tower, learning how to use stand up paddle board, learning archery, canoeing, climbing a wall and many other activities which were my daily activities for next year as I was working alongside the youth work team with camp schools, social youth work groups and international groups. Over the year I visited many beautiful places around Finland, where I had a chance to promote Erasmus and ESC programmes. I was helping many local and international projects in local youth work organisations in different cities and youth centres. 

I met many young people and for some of them I was the first person who they met from abroad. The project pushed me to my limits and even over all the limits I had before. I didn't think I could spend a whole day outside in the rain, snow or when it was -25℃. 

During this year I realized youth work is something I want to do in my life, even though I have a master's diploma in marketing from Slovakia. 

As youth work is not considered a profession in Slovakia I decided to stay in Finland. In one year I learned Finnish and was accepted to become a full time student at E.P. Opisto to become youth and community instructor. Vocational education in Finland and in Finnish just after one year of learning the language still sounds crazy to me, but it is my reality. I am almost at the end of my studies but I managed thanks to the Erasmus VET programme to be an intern in Iceland for 3 months. Also in May, me and 7 other classmates are planning a study visit in Czech Republic, to get to know their youth work.  

In 2015 without knowing anything about the Erasmus, Youth Exchanges or Training course or people who organize the projects, I just decided to go on my first project. I don't know why, what kicked me to go, but I am super grateful for that first project. 

After 8 years with Erasmus and ESC programme I can say that I was raised by Erasmus. 

I learned how to be a responsible person for myself, how to budget, how to find the best travel deals. Thanks to meeting so many young people I am open to having discussions with anybody, I learn to listen and accept others' opinions which are different from mine. 

I learned to take responsibility for my own life and believe in myself, believe in my dreams and that anything is possible if I want to. 

I learned English during the projects better than in my whole time at school. I have been learning the Finnish language for 2,5 years. I didn't even know how it sounds 3,5 years ago, today I am fluent and having conversations in school and at work. 

Thanks to Erasmus I got to fly for the first time in my life to Cyprus. I lived in 40m long sailboat for a week, had road trip around Slovakia for two weeks, met a bear in Romania, visited a high security prison in Hungary, a recycle centre in Hungary, lived in the middle of the city, but also in a castle surrounded in nature, lived for a week with ants in the bed. I met over 1000 young people around Europe, and I have a 1000 different stories from all the projects and those stories are part of me every day on my journey.  

Erasmus is responsible for who I am as a person today and what values and goals I have in my life. 

I know for sure that my journey with Erasmus and ESC is not over as I continue to be a trainer for projects and in future I want to support young people to create their own projects. Erasmus is just part of me and my life and I will be forever grateful for experiences I have and friends who I met thanks to Erasmus. 

8 years ago I would’ve never dreamt to live alone in foreign country, but anything is possible and for me Finland became a home. 

I still share my adventures on my Instagram profile, where you can find all my Erasmus projects @nika_lost_in_world 

If you managed to read till here, good job ? thank you for that. My last question is for you: What is your Erasmus story?

Updated on piątek, 13/05/2022