Representing Galway at the Erasmus Generation Meeting 2024
In early April, President and Vice-President of Erasmus Student Network (ESN) University of Galway, Bláithín Breathnach and Muireann Van Nieuwehove travelled to Seville to represent Galway at the Erasmus Generation Meeting, the biggest student-led conference in Europe.
The annual meeting brings together ESN volunteers, aka ESNers, from all over the world to learn and discuss the future of mobility and beyond. It’s also the moment when the ESN Awards are announced, as well as the coveted Erasmus Destination of the Year Award.
This year’s edition focused on addressing pressing issues in international mobility and youth engagement, with the central theme of "Removing barriers for active and equal participation".
Alongside the flag parade, the event is made up of a host of workshops and think-tank sessions in which the 1500+ attendees exchange ideas and work collectively to enhance international experiences and promote equal participation.
Both delegates from ESN University of Galway participated in several workshops and picked up valuable skills to take home that will continue to make ESN events and initiatives as accessible as possible to everyone, including “Creating Gender Inclusive Events”, “Leveraging the Expertise of Youth Organisations to Generate Real Social Impact”, “Positive Discrimination; The Trojan Horse of Equality?”, and “Careers in EPSO” and “Fighting Gender Bias”.
“I felt I left the sessions with a pocketful of new perspectives; It was an excellent opportunity to put myself into someone else’s shoes and think about what could be done on our side as event organisers to make our events more accessible to absolutely everyone.”
Many of these workshops involved brainstorming sessions with delegates from Local and National ESN sections from all across the world, and thus, these sessions provided the incredible opportunity to gather vastly differing views from a huge variety of backgrounds, which fell very much in line with ESN’s value of diversity and inclusion.
President and Vice-President of Erasmus Student Network (ESN) University of Galway, Bláithín Breathnach and Muireann Van Nieuwehove
President and Vice-President of Erasmus Student Network (ESN) University of Galway, Bláithín Breathnach and Muireann Van Nieuwehove
Lessons and international collaboration projects were not the only takeaways for ESN University of Galway at this event - indeed, they left with not one, but two awards, being named Rising Star in the ESN Erasmus Destination of the Year Competition and receiving an Honourable Mention in the Social Impact Category of the ESN Awards. These two were not only the first awards for ESN University of Galway, also the first awards to be won by any section under the Irish delegation.
The application for the Erasmus Destination of the year involved giving information on the myriad supports, events and initiatives organised by the section, along with information on the beautiful city of Galway itself. Being named Rising Star recognises the unprecedented level of effort put in by ESN University of Galway, a section at the very beginning of its ESN journey.
The Honourable Mention for Social Impact was in recognition of ESN Galway’s “Christmas Cards for Nursing Home Residents”. This involved members making and writing Christmas cards, which were then delivered to older members of the community who may not receive many Christmas cards during the festive season.
Bláithín and Muireann also took the opportunity to forge new international links for ESN University of Galway, including networking with ESNers from member universities of the Enlight European University Alliance.
This conference was a huge success and has left the ESN University of Galway committee with even more enthusiasm to continue striving to improve the student mobility experience.
Thanks to Bláithín Breathnach for this insightful piece. Follow @ESNGalway on Instagram for more.