"Embrace Diversity", youth exchange in Cyprus

“Embrace Diversity” @Agros, Cyprus

Author: Priit Amer

In the end of March, beginning of April a group of Estonians went to Cyprus, to take part in a youth exchange project in a small village pretty much in the middle of the island called Agros. Some arrived a bit early, some on time and some were late – so pretty much the usual arrival statistic also applied to that project, but one thing to take into notice’s that in Cyprus you don’t wear a watch, you decide what time is – like Chuck Norris. It can be little bit difficult to get used to, but that’s how they roll and I guess they don’t say for nothing “when in Rome, do as the Romans do...”

Anyway, once we all got settled in it was time for non other than starting to embrace the diversity – apparently… The learning process was divided between all the participating countries, which meant we didn’t had one facilitator/trainer, but many of ‘em. That also meant that some groups had more simplified approaches towards the tasks meaning mostly through energizers and such, where as others got super creative and carried out their activities via different sort of roll-playing games – for example during one most of us were turned into refugees and had to find a way back to the hotel, which had different obstacles on it to symbolized the refugee journey… During another one we were turned into 5 political parties that all represented a different scenario of the future of EU and after the presentation about all the ideas we had a voting to elect the future for EU to make it great again, turns out the future’s US of Europe!... Other than ‘em activities about the main topic of the project we also had intercultural evenings that were a lot of fun and filled with interesting facts about other countries, plus gave us a taste of their local cuisine & traditions with it. Two days we also invested for road trips, as we visited Limassol during one of ‘em and Nicosia during the other one. Now here’s a fun fact – although I guess the fun part there might not sound like too much fun for some, but anyways here it comes – Nicosia is the last divided capital city in the world. Maybe not a fun fact, but definitely educational!

To sum it all up – Cyprus is very cool, what am I saying, it’s way too hot island, but the best way to enjoy it the most would definitely be with an international group, say during an Erasmus+ project. Many thanks to all for shaping the group to be as awesome as it was and of course to our great organizers Nikolas & Vasilis – god bless You all! Ευχαριστώ!!!

Ps! Some of ‘em parts You might’ve found a bit unnecessary, but no biggy, life goes on either way.

Priit out!