KATOWICE, YOUTH EXCHANGE
06.11.2023 AL 14.11.2023
The participants countries in this Youth Exchange were; Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Italy, Georgia and Poland, the hosting country. The participating countries in this Youth Exchange were; Spain, Portugal, the Czech Republic, Italy, Georgia and Poland, the host country. We stayed at a hostel in Katowice, a city with more than 300,000 population that was about one hour away from Kraków.
We arrived in Katowice at six in the afternoon, left our luggage and went down to meet the coordinators and the Czech group that was the only one in the hostel at that time. Later, the Portuguese arrived, and the next day we finished meeting the other participants.
Every night, one of the countries held their cultural night, where they showed us videos, dances and many more traditions of their land. Often, with the dances, they gave us a little demonstration, and then we all danced together. There was always a presentation of the country and a Kahoot, and it must be said that in Spain we were very competitive, so we were always on the podium, demonstrating our knowledge even though not all the countries were neighbors, a pride for us, it must be said. During the day, the chosen country had to perform different "energizers" in order to gain energy after breakfast, lunch and coffee breaks. We used to make traditional games from each place, and many times we found that the games that we considered only from our land were also made in other countries.
The night of Spain, it's not to be full of ourselfs, but it was the best by far. After the presentations, the typical foods and drinks were always tasted and we made a potato omelet for 40 people which, although it cost us due to its size, was delicious and together with olives, nougat, sausages, biscuits , calimotxo, and sardines, I'm sure we left our mark on the hearts of all other countries.
Every day we carry out activities related to intrapreneurship, we held two talks, one face-to-face and one virtual where they explained the importance of being an entrepreneur, but that it was something that not everyone could do. The entrepreneur who came to give us the first talk told us his case, his first company went bankrupt because he didn't know how to prioritize and because he didn't want to invest in things he didn't consider important. He explained to us that it must be taken into account, how important marketing is, knowing the audience you are targeting, knowing if there are more companies in the market that are offering the same service as you and that if 'there
is, which is what will make you stand out. The other lecture explained to us the importance of following our dreams now that we are young in order to be able to reach our goals in the future, knowing how to manage our career wisely. At all times there were interactions from us which made it much more entertaining and not just a monologue, you could tell how people were really interested in the topic and wanted to go deeper.
During the youth exchange, we had groups with members from each of the countries and we created a company, we had total freedom to choose the topics so very varied things came out, from travel agencies to fast food to nightclubs or apps to help you choose the clothes you can wear. Really very innovative ideas that surprised and made you think that they had not been created before.
With these same teams we did activities to gain confidence and get to know each other better; build a tower as tall and stable as possible with five sheets of paper and ten spaghetti, a faishon show with very limited material. Everyone was very competitive and wanted to win, between the teams everyone supported and helped each other. One of the objectives of these teams was to define which business role each of us played, who was the CEO, who had more of a supervisory role…
All in all, I would define it as an experience that always brings you new knowledge about cultures in other places, you are living with almost forty people for a week, going out partying at night, and learning together every morning. They become your family temporarily, you grow fond of them and wish the days were a little longer so you could enjoy their company. Farewells are never easy, so there were tears throughout the day, but if we know something for sure, it's that we now have friends who will open the doors of their homes to us in each of these countries.
