Hermione Moore from Wiltshire YFC spent a week in Latvia with Rural Youth Europe (RYE) in October. The experience involved meeting young people from youth groups across Europe, exchanging ideas and having a lot of fun.
I applied for the autumn seminar to engage with other like-minded people from across Europe and to learn more about their rural youth organisations and how they are run.
The seminar was focused around shrinking civic spaces and each session was focused on different aspects of this. A few topics we covered were volunteer engagement, leadership and teamwork and communication and storytelling.
We got the opportunity to speak on the RYE podcast on various different topics surrounding the different parts of how organisations run with my selected topic being governance.
The evening activities allowed us to get to know other participants. We ate international foods at the international buffet, learnt international dances, took part in quizzes and most notably held a lip sync battle.
I felt the experience was interesting and I am grateful to have been able to take part. Meeting people and learning about other cultures is something I greatly enjoy, so the dances and international buffet evenings presented an insightful opportunity to learn.
It would have to be our excursion day! We visited Otankimill who offer a range of agricultural services in the Baltics and Europe, Bakūzes Muiža a German Manor where we had a lovely lunch, visited a farm near Durbe and ended the day in Liepāja the third largest city in Latvia. It was great to see local businesses and more of both rural and urban Latvia.
The energisers used before each session were great and can definitely be used when holding Curve workshop club evenings. Learning about how other organisations run, their structure and communication styles will be information I can take back to my club, as well as using the information in my professional life.
I’d recommend going on any RYE trip because it offers you the rare chance to meet like-minded people from across Europe and gain an understanding of what other youth organisations are out there. It also poses a great opportunity to meet people and make friends as well as immersing yourself in other cultures!
For more information about YFC Travel visit here.
