Hi everyone! This is Ayça, being a passionate person about intercultural activities, I’d like to share with you all the details about my Intercultural Mediation Through Sports Project in Angouleme, France.

First of all, this was my first experience with both ANKA Youth and in an erasmus+ training course. I have participated other erasmus+ youth exchanges before but this project was different in the terms of concept. The subject of the project was interculturality and sports combined, therefore we have spent most of our times with games and activities based on interculturality. We had fun, met new people from at least 5 different countries (France, Italy, Germany, Slovenia, Bulgaria, Spain) and different nationalities, learnt their cultures and how to solve problems caused by cultural conflicts. The duration of the project was 9 days, by this time we had the chance to see both Angouleme where we stayed during the project and Bordeaux.

Angouleme was a small city with gorgeous graffities, most of them were cartoons. The city is also known as comics city, you can see them all over the walls. We have had the chance to visit the Comics Museum as a part of our activities which I loved a lot. Even tough it was a small city in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of southwestern France, it still amazed us with its both historical and touristic beauties. You can see the city by walking or can take a bus where you’d like to go. The castle, the Cathedral and the Comics Museum were some of the places that we have visited during the project. Also, thanks to cheap train tickets you can also see the Cognac town which is near to Angouleme or go to Bordeaux and come back by the night.

We went to different places during the project for the activities such as a youth center, a médiatechque, maison des habitants and city center. For instance, we went out for a treasure hunt in the city. The activity was about both discovering the city and erasmus competences. The local people of Angouleme helped us a lot during this activity. We asked for them to teach us an expression special to Angouleme and vis-a-verse we taught them how to say “I love you” in our languages. At the end of the day, we were all seen at least one historical place in the city, talked with local people, discovered the hidden beauties of Angouleme and did all of this by matching them with erasmus+ competences.  

As some of you may know, every erasmus+ project contains an intercultural night. In my opinion, these nights are by far the most enjoyable and the funniest events during exchanges. I really love representing and introducing my country in abroad. During intercultural night, every participant country represents their culture in different areas. We taste their cuisines, dance all together, learn fun facts, play Kahoot and most importantly: have fun all night long. As the Turkish team, we did our best to reflect every aspect of our culture. We brought Turkish delight, baklava as a must and classics; some cartpostals of Turkey, keychains with blue beads as souvenirs; şalgam and some Turkish snacks to surprise them. That moment when people taste şalgam, expecting that it was something sweet, the looks on their face were a must to see.

To sum up, my whole week in Angouleme was an unforgettable experience for me! I am glad to have the chance to participate this project, to have lifelong lasting friendships, to visit Angouleme and Bordeaux at the same time, to learn new cultures and to represent my country and organization in such an amazing exchange project. I hope to meet another Erasmus+ exchanges in the future again and certainly encourage all my friends about these opportunities.