THE international Erasmus+ project “English through Entrepreneurship” takes place in a small town of Fălticeni, Romania during one week in October. Participants from Belgium, Croatia, Norway, Romania and Turkey are divided in three groups—tourist guide, news agency and entrepreneurship group—and reflect on their experience in the project as it nears the last mobility.

                NEWS FOR YOUTH: What is, for you, the greatest benefit of this project?

BELGIUM: Meeting new people and making friendships, but also cooperating as a team with people who have different world views and ideas.

CROATIA: Teambuilding. We’ll come home more connected, but also eager to start some

new things in our community thanks to the leadership skills we’re building here. Of course, meeting new people and cultures is still the most important part of the project that we’ll remember our entire lives.

NORWAY: Working with people from different cultures and the freedom we have while working. We have to be more open-minded than at school and we’re using different ways to achieve our goals, not just one someone told us we have to use.

ROMANIA: Getting to improve our communicational and language skills, and becoming more confident while speaking English. We use different ways of thinking, so we’re learning how to better develop our ideas and plans, as well.

TURKEY: Meeting people from different countries, and learning and building our language skills. Friendships made on this mobility will be a beautiful thing worth remembering once the project is over.

                NFY: What do you think about other participants? Which delegation you have the best communication with?

B: All delegations are great and people are really open and nice. We’re closest to the Norwegians, mostly because of the similarities between our cultures.

C: At the beginning it was a bit hard to communicate with the delegations, because we didn’t know each other, but now atmosphere is great and we’re all really good friends. The delegation with which we have best communication is Romania.

N: We enjoy hanging out with people from all delegations. The Turkish delegation is the quietest, so we didn’t have opportunity for lot of communication, but they are very nice. We have the best communication with the Belgians, since we’re pretty similar and have the most in common with.

R: We are honored that people from other delegations came to our country and their all are very open and interesting and we like them all, but the delegations we have best communication with are Croatia and Norway.

T: All the participants are really friendly and we enjoy being on a project with them. Out of all delegations, though, we’re closest to Croatians and Belgians.

                NFY: How would you describe the participants from each country?

B: People from Norway are just like us, Croatians are very social, while Romanians are friendly and great hosts. The Turkish people are very nice and they share everything.

C: All the delegations are very friendly, but Belgians and Norwegians are the most open. The Turkish people are friendly and Romanians are just great.

N: The funniest people we’ve met on the mobility are from Belgium. The Croatian and Romanian delegations are nice and so are the people from Turkey, but they are very shy so we didn’t have a lot of opportunities to talk with them.

R: Turkish people are friendly, but shy. The ones from Croatia are smart and beautiful while the Norwegians and Belgians are crazy and fun.

T: People from Croatia and Romania are real hard workers and Norwegians and Belgians are really polite.

                NFY: Is there any memorable experience on this mobility you’d like to share?

B: The stars weren’t on our side at the beginning of project. Firstly, our teacher had problems with their passport and couldn’t come with us and our language was lost, then we realized we had booked only one room with two beds for 7 of us. But we survived, came to Romania and now we’re really enjoying the mobility.

T: Our favourite experience would be the movie night we had with few other participants from different delegations.

                NFY: What would you recommend to your peers based on experience you gained on this project?

ALL: Take every opportunity to be a part of an Erasmus+ project because it’s a life changing-experience. It’s important to work on yourself, not to be shy and always to be open for new things and different people.

For this interview we thank: Wietse Bisschops and Aster Marcus (Belgium), Marta Barbir and Domagoj Jurišak (Croatia), Jostein Ovidt Bardal and Marie Nygaard (Norway), Claudiu Popa and Bianca Blanariu (Romania), Burak Birpinar and Zeynep Sevval Gurz (Turkey).

Answers have been edited for length and clarity.