Romania
participants
The 'Erasmus Generation Summit' (EGS) was a novel event implemented within the framework of the 'Halloween in Transylvania' (HiT) national project of ESN Romania. While HiT is a yearly recurring project with a long standing for over a decade, that aims to promote the culture of Romania to its international students, the EGS was first implemented as an event during the 2022 edition of HiT, in order to meet a multitude of additional objectives that have been identified over the years: the opportunity to build upon the intercultural context that is provided within the project, the desire to foster civic engagement of the international students on exchange, and the desire of HiT attendees to participate in more varied activities.
The intersection of all these objectives and the favourable context of HiT, which gathered together 800+ attendees from all over the world and from diverse backgrounds, allowed ESN Romania to implement a new event, consisting of a series of activities on topics such as: multiculturalism, education and youth, environmental sustainability, and democracy. The multicultural context for the EGS provided added value by allowing the attendees to share their perspectives and initiate discussions with students from diverse backgrounds.
The EGS was organised as a series of concurrent activities within the larger context of HiT, in the afternoon of October 28th 2022, in Râsnov, Romania. The series of activities were centered on topics related not only to the national culture of Romania, but also: civic engagement and democracy, environmental sustainability and biodiversity, youth and education, and multiculturality. The HiT attendees could express their options for joining the activities in the organised set, based on their personal interest. The activities under the umbrella of EGS were:
- a projection of the Romanian documentary 'Wild Romania' at the Amza Pellea Cinema, to initiate a discussion amongst participants about biodiversity;
- three parallel participative workshop sessions on the topics of democracy, civic participation, and education;
- an upcycling workshop at the Peter Thal Middle School and a pumpkin carving space at the Europe Direct Râșnov office, to promote the subject of environmental sustainability;
- a tour of the Râșnov Citadel, a silent trip in nature around the town, and a city hunt within the town, to promote the local culture and diversify the scope of the international students' interest, to pique their interest in visiting other, smaller towns while on exchange and immerse themselves in the local culture.
