If spending a summer in a foreign land was not challenging enough, Elena was immediately overwhelmed by the people she was working with in the summer camp. Unsure of how to work with people suffering serious mental and physical disabilities, Elena simply didn’t know how to react.

However, after a few days, Elena started to understand how to interact, care and bring joy to the people for which she was caring. Dancing with a man in a wheelchair, playing with a man who thinks he is 11 and interacting and learning the intelligence of a child, despite the fact that they can’t speak or hear, were just some of the moments which helped Elena to learn from this experience.

To do this, Elena had to overcome her fears and challenge her limits in order to give her best work, to make the summer camp experience special and memorable for everyone who was there. More so, because of this, Elena had the opportunity to grow and learn with people quite different to her.

From this experience, Elena has learned to appreciate people, no matter their differences, rather looking for how people express themselves through how they feel, act, laugh and show their affection. Elena is now seeking similar experiences, with the knowledge that if you want to grow as a person, you simply must do something you wouldn’t usually do!

Yasmine graduated a year ago from university, in her home country, Egypt. She worked for a while in a career she found unfulfilling. After joining the organization, she found her internship and traveled within a couple of weeks.

It was her first time to travel completely alone, with no one she knew, no one to help her with papers at the airport or to carry her luggage. She choose to look for internships in a country she always dreamed of going to, a country that’s language, culture and traditions were not common for her. She went determined to try a lot of new things; because she was a shy and quiet person she was looking to become a more outgoing, not afraid to point out her views and opinions and a talkative person. Because Yasmine is a “summer all year long fan”, as she says, she chose Malaysia.

She was challenged right from the first hour of her internship: “The moment I arrived everybody had exams and weren’t as free to take me around, especially my project manager. That did not stop me, I took the address and went to the shelter house alone with a taxi, that’s how determined I was to change myself, and not to wait for an easier path. Before I would not have done that, not even in my own country, Egypt.”

Even though she was busy with the work on two projects, Yasmine was able to travel around Malaysia and go on road trips with her new friends; the other interns; she rode on an elephant (and this is coming from a person that is scared of cats), she went to a crocodile farm where she held a baby croc on her head, she went to an ostrich farm where she got to feed ostrich out of her bare hands (“believe me they are really crazy birds, they will eat anything and everything”).

“Choosing a development internship was the best choice for me”, says Yasmine. She is happy that even she had to deal with a lot of work and situations of which gets scared, she got to work with people directly, to make a difference in a sector of society, to make youth aware of two important different issues in Malaysia. She got a chance to try different food, experience the amazing culture and traditions of different countries, not just of Malaysia, but from other interns, like Romania, Holland, Taiwan, China, India, Finland and France.

Now, Yasmine is back in Egypt, making a change as one of the three team leaders in charge of conference management of a local project. Even though her internship might not have been long, a mere 3 months, she got to learn a lot, a complete change of attitude and understanding of how she wants to pursue her life after that. Now she is more determined to improve and master her leadership skills even more.

In AIESEC Cluj-Napoca I found out for the 2 years and half spent there that passion has no limits and you can really find a wide range of opportunities to explore it to the full. Mine was still Exchange, but this time I took it to an upper level- in the spring of 2009 I applied and got selected in the National Committee of AIESEC Norway and what I didn’t know at that point was that Roxi was about to start the experience of a life time.

Being in an international MC and coordinating the Exchange area reached new points for me…

I was finally  about to discover what Exchange- the experience that I constantly was talking about in AIESEC- really meant to me. Because, nevertheless, being on a total unfamiliar ground, having completely different expectations and perspectives about how to live life every day, knowing just a couple of people who were dragging me to adjust in an environment that felt so natural to them all the time, not knowing the language and how to get to things in the most simple way as possible eventually pulled the trigger and revealed me a new world- a world I wasn’t at all aware of, a world of opportunities and beautiful people that enabled me to grow and respect life even more, a world that pushed me every day to ask and give even more from myself, a world of diversity that I could leverage on in order to make my way to success.

Norway is intriguing at the very first sight. Everything seems to combine in a perfect picture of living life to the highest standards ever. I almost fell for that and realized many people have this picture about countries of such, but till we don’t get the real chance to visit, we will never find out what world lies there, right before our eyes… After living in Oslo for one year, I learned a lot about simplicity and courage- two strong values I wanted to shape a lot within my everyday life- and this is how Norwegians I believe live their life every day- this is something one can spot at any point in time- landscapes, architectural designs, life habits and attitude. And if I were to add a flavor to the picture, I would for sure complete it through internationalism.

And this is how my story gets interesting… I was part of an international team of 6 brave people with whom this year we made impossible seem reckless, who’s diversity by nature and maturity in living their international experience to the full, built a synergy that made AIESEC in NORWAY become a sheer success. I believe this is one of the most beautiful things one can earn out of having an international position within AIESEC or a company or any other type of institutions- the capacity to feel you trully belong to a network YOU build that brings satisfaction every day through what you do and open your perspectives so much that at a certain point YOU feel the entire world is too small for you not to live as you want…

My international experience meant in the end 5 amazing individuals that together with me built and nurtured for a vision daily, AIESEC members that saw the relevance of EXCHANGE, internationals feeling constantly overwhelmed of the beauty of Norway… my experience was reflected in a world of celebration I called “fyru”, where all great things happen on a Thursday, where I can put my hand on the map with my eyes closed and knowing I got the chance to talk to a person from that place… my experience meant a beautiful country, with welcoming people, it meant travelling and enjoying it to the full… my experience abroad meant building simplicity and courage in my everyday actions.

And all these are now reflected in a much more beautiful person, with a strong purpose and respect towards living life, with clear goals and ambitions, who’s constantly revealing herself to the world through a smile.

Looking back, I cannot be more grateful to what AIESEC Cluj-Napoca has offered me because all puzzle pieces put together, my international experience in Norway started there… in the small office in Haşdeu, dorm 14, ground floor… where I, as a member, really loved what I was doing…

Starting in the Exchange team learning about how to help international students to take this opportunity or to help other members of AIESEC Lisbon to be part of an international learning environment, Pedro skipped the application for delegate and ended up as one of the organizers of one of the biggest international conferences in the AIESEC network, back in 2008, in Germany, having only 3 months of AIESEC.

After this intense learning experiences, he decided to embrace a different type of challenge and went to India for a Development Traineeship where he believed he would develop in order to continue his path in the organization. Later on he returned to his local committee, after a mind blowing experience and kept on growing as he became member and Team Leader of the Communications Team. In 2009 he became local Vice President of Communication and completed his experience as a president of AIESEC Lisboa ISCTE.

In between all this experiences Pedro participated in 6 international conferences and dozens of local and national conferences and helped boosting a national attitude of embracing the internationalism and leadership.

Overall, Pedro learned new cultures and perspectives, understanding diversity and striving to boost the change agent in each and every one of the members.

Moreover, as my project is highly related to Corporate Social Responsibility, it provides me a new perspective about CSR and the third sector in Romania. CSR is quite a new concept for students and it is not a common practice in Romanian community. It can be seen that CSR is not a prioritized strategy because the general public demand the transparency and governance of the company at the first place. Besides, the non-governmental organizations in Romania vary in quality because there is no systematic regulation and rule, for example, some of them are not organized and structured. The third sector in developing countries still has a long way to go, nevertheless, it is an important actor in improving the society.

My facilitation and training skills are also sharpened because of continuously practices. When I am facing with different audience, the method of delivery could be very different. I could not realize that if I have not participated in the trainings with university students, AIESECers and high school students. At the same time, I gain lots of confidence in delivering workshops even facing with foreigners. I could able to share and discuss with other trainers which let me gain some insights from another perspective.