Monday, May 18, 2015

My EXCHANGE PROJECT EXPERIENCES"


"The fantastic four" drinking coconut water in Mombasa!
“The fantastic four” drinking coconut water in Mombasa!

 Lonely planet, trip advisor, media, friends, YouTube. Nothing ever prepares you well enough for an exchange project – except from the experience itself. From that unforgettable call informing one they’ve made it to be part of the exchange team, to the preparation phase, on and on to the final day. Every moment and every day is an experience, whether at one’s home country or away.
Mary Appophia
Exchange participant


The exchange project acquaints one to new experiences, lessons and skills that are essential to life, such as self-reliance, taking initiative, swimming in winter under 10 degree Celsius, open mind-ness, diversity appreciation, dancing to different music, cooking new types of food – like the famous Norwegian TACO! Norwegians love Taco, and in most homes, its Taco Fridays every Friday.

But I won’t lie that the couple months’ exchange project might be tough on you, but they’ll also give you all the life skills you need.  As fundamental as some are, all skills are simply not gained, and well for me the not-gained skill is the art of packing. Often we’ve been travelling for week, and one would assume with so much travel I’ve become really good at selecting essentials, and carrying just enough. But no, I don’t think I’ll ever learn. Good that I’m not the only one with this not-gained skill.

August 21st, the year is 2014, Ann and I got our first plane ride, and well for me, the first time at the airport. Destination? Oslo, Norway. The air trip was as exciting as we’d expected, but for one little disappointing factor, Ann’s ears did not “pop out” as she’d pictured (Sorry Ann, I know I promised not to tell anyone about that).

Sweet Summer ended, beautiful autumn came, and let’s say for Ann and I the “not so friendly winter” finally arrived. But it was exciting experiencing the different seasons, skating in the snow, visiting the famous ski jump. Norway was simply beautiful for us, with new experiences each day, beautiful nature, the trains and train-time conscious lessons…

My awe moment must’ve been seeing the northern lights. And I remember thinking, “that they are actually real”. I always thought it was something people said about some lights in the sky… It was wonderful actually seeing them in real life!

And the most important part was creating climate change awareness in schools, visiting Grønn Ungdoms local groups, learning new cultures, sharing experiences, as well as meeting new people. We had a lot of fun, and gained a huge amount of experience on talking in front of an audience on our tours!

In the course of visiting schools one aspect that stood out, was climate change is quite a distant subject to most students. And that is true for most people; it can sound like a huge subject that a mere individual has no control over. But something we have learnt is that a focus on how your audience can contribute in stopping, or reducing, the impacts of climate change, always brings the topic closer home. People want to feel that they can do something and contribute to the solution.

Boom! January 2015 came, and it was Guris and Fridas turn to travel the 7000km. Destination?  +254, Land of lions, Giraffes, Gazelles, Buffalos, Zebras and beautiful handcraft. (That was just some brief marketing on Kenya as a great tourist destination.)

In Kenya we have been doing some of the same things as in Norway: Visiting schools in Western/Coastal/Nairobi Kenya. We’ve realized that students in the different parts know quite a lot on climate change. And most solutions that students gave, focused quite a lot on adaptation and mitigation. Many parts of the country are already feeling the effects of climate change and it is important that people are aware of how to cope with this changes.

In addition, we have been visiting KYG local groups. We have learnt quite a lot on what they are doing as well identified challenges/ areas that could be improved more.  This will guide our last phase on areas to develop proposals on.

And of course I have to mention food, and It has been fun eating food from the different parts of the country. From Ugali+chicken in Western Kenya, Ugali+fish in Nyanza, Pilau, Madafu in the coast, and the most important: CHAPATI <3 p="">
In the last one month, focus shifts to strengthening the organization with a focus on improving KYG programme areas, developing proposals as well as compiling the final project products such as the video and the report.

Now there is less than two weeks left of this 8 month adventure. It has been fun, instructive and exciting, as well as challenging, tough and sometimes stressful. I have learnt so much; about ways of fighting climate change, cultures (and the clashes that might occur), organisational work and things I didn’t know about my self. This has been an experience that I will carry for the rest of my life, and I want to encourage you to apply for an exchange program if you ever get the chance!

1 comment:

  1. Politician allegedly poisoned a Standard newspaper Journalist. – A journalist from the Standard Media Group is dead

    – According to social media, the veteran journalist was poisoned by a coast MP

    – He was 50 years

    A veteran journalist from Standard Media house was allegedly poisoned dead by a popular MP.

    According to a rumour that is being shared around by friends of the deceased, the Kilifi-based reporter was poisoned because of a disagreement and died on Saturday, September 3 at his Kiwandani home in Kilifi.

    He was 50 years.
    Read here : https://tuko.co.ke/187731-standard-media-group-journalist-allegedly-poisoned-dead-popular-mp.html

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