Everybody loves Santa

Tell me briefly, what is ESN? ESN Riga is an organisation which is a part of International organisation „Erasmus Student Network”, which is the biggest higher education student organisation which encourages and supports mobility of students. Its working is based on the principle „Students are helping students”. ESN supports educational mobility so that everyone could experience various mobility schemes. ESN Riga is a non-profit, non-political and non-religious international student organisation which organises many activities for International Exchange students, involves Latvian students, who have just returned from their Exchange studies or just like to be surrounded with people from different cultures, in the International environment by helping organise these events and projects. The basic function of ESN Riga is the organisation of Buddy system. What is a study buddy and what does it mean to be one? Buddy is a mentor, one that gives advices, actually, the first Latvian friend for Exchange students, who have chosen Latvia as the destination for their semester abroad. Buddy helps the foreign students to fit in here in Latvia in their first weeks of studies. What kind of activities ESN Riga organises and can also students of University of Latvia can participate? ESN Riga organises various events, mainly focussed on the incoming exchange students, but also other interested students are welcome to participate. We organise semester’s introductory and closing seminars for exchange students as well as trips across and outside Latvia, including Russia. One of the biggest events for international exchange students of all Northern Europe is the Sea Battle in which exchange students from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia Sweden, Norway and Denmark take part. This is an event on a ferry, where through various activities the exchange students can better integrate within student environment. In the future ESN plans to organise trips to CIS countries such as Belarus and Ukraine. We also organise sports activities – for example paintball tournaments and for the 4^th time we will participate in Nordea Riga marathon and UL Sport’s games. Of course the priorities to participate in these events have the international exchange students, however, there is a number of other events that also Latvian students can take part in – those are thematic evenings and parties when celebrating Halloween, St. Patrick’s day among others. We also organise national culture evenings where students from different countries present their traditional costumes, national dishes, dances and traditions – so far we have had Spanish, Italian, African and other cultural evenings. How did you decide to become an ESN member and how long are you a member? I am a member of ESN since 2008 and participate actively for almost 4 years. Actually, I have to say that my initial choice to join ESN was by an accident – ESN organised a trip to Tallinn, and I decided to participate in it. Afterwards I decided to become a member and was assigned to be the coordinator of the buddy system – I recall that my first assignment was to appoint study buddies for 20 exchange students.  Becoming the president of ESN Riga happened 2 years ago, when the previous president changed her job, and the ESN Riga board was looking for a replacement. At that time I was a board member responsible for PR and communication, and I had just returned from ERASMUS studies in Spain and since then I am president of ESN Riga. The main reason why I joined ESN Riga initially was to improve my English but later on I realised that I am more interested in the main goals and areas of work therefore I still participate actively. Do you remember some particular ESN activity that you want to tell others? It actually is a comical event – on or trip from St. Petersburg, in the middle of the night while crossing the Latvian – Russian boarder our bus broke down. At first the drivers told us, that we will have to wait just a few hours. That, of course, was the best case scenario, because in fact we had to wait much longer. The exhausted exchange students had to spend their night in a small, tiny room all together. I believe that those students won’t forget this trip themselves. What kind of experience has ESN given you? It is an inevitable experience – first of all those are practical management, planning and organisation skills, and broader view of the representation of student’s interests in the European Commission. Of course, I have gotten new contacts and gained friends from all over the world and I can tell you for sure that ESN is a big part of my life and have changed me a lot. I don’t want to deny – ESN means loads of work and it takes time – also sleepless nights, but it definitely is worth every second. A genuine “Thank you Santa for an unforgettable semester in Latvia” when saying goodbye to me at the last day of the semester is the best approval that I can receive.