“Why have I done this?” This is the question that comes to my mind every day at 7:34 AM, the time when I leave for my lectures after having about five hours of sleep. The reason is not that I do not like the subject of my studies. It is because I am an Erasmus student.

Pentes de la Croix Rousse

30 years ago, the Erasmus programme was created. Since then, each year thousands of students have had the experience of their lifetime. However, after 30 years of a very successful programme it is high time to consider the difficulties that many students face when going to an Erasmus exchange as a result of its distribution.

As students, we have this idyllic idea of how Erasmus is. Everyone that you know has an incredible experience, few people answer negatively to the question “would you do it again?”. I have now arrived to the conclusion that this is probably because 1) most working class people still do not make it to university and 2) those who do probably never think of doing an Erasmus. I was in this last group until just about my very last year of university.

My mother works as a cleaner, my father is a handicapped, undocumented immigrant and my brother is, like many others, a 30-year-old unemployed Spaniard. As the first person in my family to go to university, I never thought that I would end up doing my last year as an Erasmus, but I convinced myself that I would be able to make it work.

In previous years, I had always denied myself even the thought of doing an Erasmus year. Sometimes, my brother would come and ask me: “Why don’t you do an Erasmus?”. My answer was constantly the same: “What if the grant does not arrive on time? I cannot do that to this family”. At that point, he always conceded.

Hotel de Ville de Lyon

Our little family, whose only income is the ridiculously small salary of my mother and part of my grandmother’s pension, cannot afford to send me the necessary money for my living expenses every month. As an Erasmus student you have a grant (€300 for countries such as France plus €100 on top for people with lower incomes in the case of Spain). Even the most frugal student could never live on €400 per month in a country like France.

The idea behind the grant is that the European Union finances the difference between the cost of living your in home country and in your host country. However, this ignores the reality of many students like me, who struggle to finance our studies in our home countries even if we live in the parental home. Working and studying at the same time, we still have to live with our families until we finish our studies and, in some cases, even after we have graduated.

For me, doing an Erasmus means waking up ridiculously early for having the classes that allow me to go to work in the afternoon, arrive in the evenings to my home, make dinner, eat, do all the work required for university and the NGOs that I am involved with and then going to sleep very late to prepare myself for another quite unwelcome day.

I do not have time to socialise, to go partying, to make new friends, to create memories that I am never going to forget, and not even to learn the language properly. And even if I had the time, I would never have the money to do so.

Mur des Canuts, Lyon

This is tremendously unfair.

I wish that I could go for a beer with my mates every day, that I could arrive home before 7:00 PM, that I could have a reasonable sleep, that I could make friends that will last forever. I wish that, in the years to come, I would be able to say with love “Once Erasmus, Always Erasmus”. But I fear that this is never going to happen.

It is time to rethink Erasmus grants. It is not fair that the difference of money received between someone like me and a person with a wealthy family to support them is only €100. It is high time to ensure that every student can sincerely say “Once Erasmus, Always Erasmus”.

Written by Zahia Guidoum Castiblanque, AEGEE-València

Do you know what AEGEE-Riga, AEGEE-Tartu and AEGEE-Valletta have in common?

In the Facebook era, we could say they have a friend in common: the Anna Lindh Foundation (ALF), a network can open many doors to their members and facilitate the foundation of new projects.

AEGEE-Riga were the last ones who “added this friend”, just a few weeks ago.

The AEGEEan interviewed one of its members, Klinta Stasjule, who had an important role in the establishment of this partnership.

Klinta, can you explain a bit more what the Anna Lindh Foundation is about?

The purpose of ALF is to bring people across the Mediterranean together to improve the mutual respect between cultures. Since its establishment in 2005, the Anna Lindh Foundation has launched and supported action across the fields impacting perceptions of people from different cultures and with different beliefs, as well as developing a region-wide Network of civil society organisations.
They provide people the opportunity to work together to promote intercultural dialogue and to create a Euro-Mediterranean region as an area of cooperation, mobility and peace.

Currently the Foundation brings together more than 3000 organisations from 43 countries!

What is their strategy to reach their aims? How do they organize the work?
The programme of the Foundation is focused on activities in fields which are essential for human and social dialogue:
• Culture and Creativity;
• Education and Intercultural Learning;
• Urban Spaces and Citizenship;
• Media and Public Opinion.

The fields of action sounds similar to the ones of AEGEE…

Yes! There are many similar things.. AEGEE also offers the opportunity to work and develop yourself in multicultural environment and promotes cooperation between cultures.

What are the main differences instead?

Mainly that they operate not only European countries, but also in Southern and Eastern Mediterranean coast countries (such as Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Lebanon…) and that this is an organisation which connects a lot of organisations such as AEGEE, thus allowing networking.

How did you hear about the Anna Lindh Foundation?

One of our active members wanted to apply for an exchange organised by ALF and she got refused as the priority usually is given to the members from the ALF Network.
We checked all the info and decided that joining the ALF could be useful and it would open new horizons!

Is the procedure to join easy? 

I would say, yes, it is. Any non-governmental, non-profit organisation, association, university, government and enterprise fund that supports the mission and wants to promote intercultural dialogue with the Euro-Med countries can join the AFL.

To become the Anna Lindh Foundation, we had to complete application forms online (one in English – http://www.euromedalex.org/node/add/member and one in Latvian). Then we were invited for a meeting with the representatives of ALF explaining our motivation to join that led us to be approved as a member of ALF Network in Latvia.

Do you have already in mind any specific initiatives that can be carried on with their support?

We don’t know yet the precise answer as we have just joined the network and haven’t participated in any initiative. But anyway, it doesn’t make any extra costs to the organisation, you should prepare just some annual reports to be submitted. So that we encourage each of you take on this opportunity if it’s possible and in case you find it attractive!

Would you suggest other antennae to become a part of this network? Why?

As I said, the aim is similar to AEGEE and this only opens wider horizons! Why not!?

Participation in the Anna Lindh Foundation network organisation does not impose any financial or legal obligations and, if you are not convinced yet, this is a list of the advantages of joining, as described on ALF’s website:

* Only the network member organisations are eligible for the Foundation for the grant project competition.
* Opportunity to participate in training seminars, conferences and various other fund and its members’ events.
* Possibility to receive regular information (advice) about the ongoing ALF and Euro-Med cooperation in the field.
* Ability to work with other organisations within the network and find partners for different projects.
* Opportunity to participate in Euro-Med policy making, decision-making processes involved in the performance of the network priorities and key tasks.

More info on the website – http://www.euromedalex.org/about !

Written by Martina Zanero, AEGEE-Torino