Almost three years. Almost 1095 days that I completely feel every kind of emotion and not regret any of them. Just one organization may affect your life flow. Welcome to AIESEC.
Every person has own meaning of life. And when you are becoming an university student you need to make this meaning more clear. It is like instinct. While you are growing up this instinct starts to poke you. Telling you that “You need to clarify me cause I’m the one who can show you what you are going to do in your life” and asking questions as: “What do you want to do?”, “Who do you want to be?” or “And how are you going to do it?”. But we are as the rest of humankind, we don’t like too much questions, and that’s why we want to find the immediate answer just for get rid of them. But just a small part of us is aware that we need to think deeply to answer these questions. Some of us looking for a help which is more practical. For me this help was AIESEC, and still it is.
AIESEC helps you see a world where young people have the opportunity to understand themselves. With tens of thousands of opportunities in AIESEC network, you can discover and activate your potential. Transform yourself with life changing experiences abroad that will redefine the way you see yourself, and the world. Is it something that will help you to answer those questions, ha? So from my part I joined AIESEC when I started visiting university. In my first year I worked with disabled children, teaching them English, and we had 25 people from Slovakia, Hungary, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Malaysia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Georgia, Estonia, Egypt, Kazakhstan, France, Hong Kong, Taiwan and China. Yes, these people came to my country as volunteers to help disabled children, to give them a chance to know that there are people, besides their doctors and parents, who are trying to help them. I didn’t just have friends from all over the world. I’ve understood that there are no boundaries between people. When you are together to work for one purpose you don’t care from which country you are, you just care about solidarity, cultural understanding, friendship. Those people also taught me that I can do whatever I want. If I want something so much I just need to go for it. I might have obstacles but it doesn’t mean that I have to stop. Because I know I can do that. I did once why I can’t do it again?
Birthday with my international friends from “Break Up the Barriers”
After this project I became a team leader. My job was to recruit the people to AIESEC and tell them why we exist. What is our vision and how we’re trying to achieve it. I had belief from my last experience so this whole Team Leader thing was just perfect job for me. Despite of it, it was also hard. Because you can’t expect from people to be excited like you are when they haven’t gone through the same experiences. Therefore I had to be clear and use the way that they are able to understand why they should be the part of AIESEC. I started to tell them my story and was encouraging them to write their own stories. Thus, we can create more leadership stories for the world.
Now, I’m here in Kosice studying through Erasmus program after 2 years in AIESEC as I wanted to be part of the other international organizations. But to be honest after my first week here, I started to search if there is AIESEC. Because you can’t just end your AIESEC stories like that. It is not something you can just say goodbye. So I decided to move on my AIESEC life. Because this is the place where I may find all my answers, this is the place where I can make positive impact in the world. This is the place where I found my own purpose in my life. I have become a reflection of my experience and I’ll reflect it to empower other people.
Applications for new members are opened. You can apply on this link.
Author: Selin Akay
Selin is exchange addicted, world citizen and sport enthusiastic.
