Welkom Vilma

September 05, 2023 10:10

Moi! / Hallo! / Hi!

My name is Vilma, I’m 21 years old and I’m from Finland.

I was on exchange in the US in 2019-2020 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Some of my favorite memories from my exchange year are a trip to Chicago, having movie nights and celebrating Thanksgiving together with my host family and singing in a youth choir.

Instead of going to a normal high school (lukio) in Finland I chose to do the International Baccalaureate Diploma program because I wanted to study in English and have the chance to study and work abroad in the future. After years of hard work and a dozen essays later I finally graduated in 2022.

Since the end of my own exchange year I have also been a volunteer for YFU Finland, mostly interviewing students who are interested in going on exchange.

This year I will be working as a coloured glasses intern at the YFU Flanders office. My stay here in Belgium kicked off a couple weeks ago with the on-arrival orientation for the new students in Flanders this year together with the other interns and volunteers.

As a coloured glasses intern my main job will be booking, organizing and giving workshops for young people at schools, youth clubs or other organizations. I’m hoping that with our coloured glasses workshops we can teach young people about the importance of intercultural communication and cultural understanding while promoting YFU and student exchange.

I’m very excited to start this journey with YFU Flanders, explore Belgium and experience the culture and hopefully learn some Dutch along the way.

Vilma