My first Youth Exchange with Awesome People
- Elisa Pistone
- Mar 18, 2023
- 2 min read
This week started with the end of my first Youth Exchange as a participant.
I was just over a week in Spain with Pelin, Fredrik and 3 Swedish guys, Viktor, Thea and Sanna.
It was a great experience that I will definitely remember, especially for some people I had the opportunity to know and hope to meet again in my life.
On the way back to Sweden I stopped to think about a few things about how I lived this experience.
I arrived full of anxieties, worried that the other participants would not accept me and/or would judge me for who I am (a trans girl).
The week went uphill, as already mentioned, I met wonderful people and I gradually felt more free to express myself, getting to experiment with a little make-up in public for the first time.
But at the end I realized one thing, namely that during those days I was too focused on my anxieties and that this had an excessive influence on how I experienced the Youth Exchange, also preventing me from getting to know the people around me better and giving them the chance to get to know me.
I realized that it's good to feel like myself and that I don't give a damn what other people think because it's not something I can control.
I understood that because of my fears I am losing opportunities for growth and exchange that I may never relive again.
Sometimes maybe things could go wrong but that doesn't mean I have to preclude myself from experiencing all the other happy moments life has to offer me.
At Awesome People I feel like I have a safe space where I can express myself and I want to take this opportunity to be a little more free and myself.
Be Yourself. Be Brave. Be Proud.
Thank you for sharing this wonderful and inspiring experience. Youth exchanges create valuable opportunities to learn from different cultures, build meaningful connections, and develop a broader understanding of global perspectives. Your reflections help readers appreciate the personal and professional growth that can come from international collaboration. Experiences like these also highlight the importance of communication, leadership, and civic engagement, which are often discussed in a public policy management seminar & course for executives in Stockholm, Sweden when exploring effective approaches to community and organizational development.