You(th) Are the Future

There’s a saying: “Once Erasmus, forever Erasmus”
When I first heard it, I was 18, fresh out of my eggshell and with a friend we joined our first youth exchange together to feel safe. I had no idea that this one step would turn into a journey that reshaped my life.

Back then, my biggest fear wasn’t travelling abroad, it was speaking English. I worried I wouldn’t understand or be understood, and the bullying I faced made me doubt even more. But Erasmus has this strange effect, it spreads like a virus, in the best possible way. One project led to a second, then a third… and somewhere along the way, the fear disappeared. From participant, I grew into a leader, then into a facilitator and project manager. Eventually, I even started my own youth group, empowering other young people the same way I once needed.

Can you imagine the effect of crossing a random city and texting someone that you had met years before on a youth exchange in the middle of the mountains, only to end up sharing a beer and laughing like no time had passed. That’s the Erasmus virus, once you catch it, the world suddenly feels smaller and full of doors waiting to be opened.

Sometimes things don’t need to make sense to anyone else, only to you. That’s how it was for me. I completed my studies and found my own way of connecting my forest engineering background with environmental education, turning it into a path focused on sustainability and empowering young people. 

Anyways, I will agree with the saying as I mentioned before and I will add, that the world is small but the Erasmus world is even smaller...

Updated on It-Tlieta, 17/02/2026