Humans of Europe
We want to share the stories of Europe!
Here is Živa's story:
👋 Hi there! I’m Živa and I am a 23 year old psychology student from Slovenia. Currently I am taking a gap year and I am an European solidarity corps volunteer in Koszalin, Poland where I will stay for 12 months. I am really passionate about promoting mental health care and also taking care of our environment.
🇩🇪 🇵🇱 I could talk about how I benefitted from the European Union for hours. I was 6 years old when Slovenia joined the EU and I basically grew up being a European. Thanks to a school project, I had my first Erasmus+ exchange when I was 13: I went to Kamienica, Poland for a week where I met many interesting people. Later on, during my studies I also participated in an Erasmus+ exchange in Konstanz, Germany where I completed one whole year of studies. I can truly say that this experience changed my life. It showed me that I am capable of moving to a foreign country, studying in a different language and it made me realize that the world isn’t such a big and scary place and that I would love to experience as much of it as I can.
🌍 Even though half of my exchange was marked by the start of pandemic, I still enjoyed every second of it. Experiencing post Erasmus depression, I then decided to try to go abroad again and that is how I joined European solidarity corps, which also gave me an opportunity to work in my study field and actually made me discover in which direction I would like to further my education.
🇪🇺 So, why NOT Europe? I cannot find any reason against the European Union. I have met my best friends because of the EU, I have grown as a person because of the experiences the EU made possible, I have discovered my passion and career path joining the projects from the EU, not to mention the languages that I had the opportunity to learn from native speakers. I would love to encourage more young people to take the opportunities the EU is giving us. Coming from a small country, I dare say that once you realize that you are European citizen, you start discovering many more open doors for both career and personal development.
Živa is one of the thousands experiencing Europe day by day.
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