Shaimaa Hedaya in Novosibirsk, Russia

"Life is either a daring adventure or it is nothing"

I’m Shaimaa Hedaya from Alexandria, Egypt. I am 21 years old and I study at the faculty of economics and political science, Cairo University.

I always love to learn and discover new things, and do anything that would reduce the routine of life. Therefore, I consider my travel to Russia The best experience of my life. It was really an adventure for me to travel by myself for the first time in a foreign country and deal with a total different culture.

During my internship, I worked with an NGO called Sibecocenter, my project was named "EcoACTION" which was solely dedicated to raise environmental awareness, educate children and people about ecology-related topics and involve citizens in environment preservation-related events.

I have participated in a culture festival in Novosibirsk organized by AIESEC in which I represented Egypt and there were around 25 other countries. And “Yeay” :) Egypt won the 4^th place. I will do my best for Egypt to win the first place next time. ;)

My favourite memory was our camp on the Izdrevaya River. We helped in organizing an ecological “educational” camp for kids. I had a lot of fun and gained real life experience in teamwork and overcoming obstacles. It was fun despite the difficulties of the weather at night and insects.

Finally, I can say that AIESEC gave me the chance to enhance my personality, I learned how to take care of myself, I learned how to cook and gained friends from different countries, I really had life-changing experience. I lost count of the things I have learned. I’m really looking forward to the next adventure with AIESEC Cairo University.

Ahmed Karam in Ankara, Turkey

I would like to say that I am so glad because I have managed to achieve one of my goals which was to travel to turkey.

I had a great time with AIESEC Ankara and I had the chance to see different cultures and interact with different people.

I learned about their language and culture and we taught them ours.

My project was called the “International Taxi drivers”, in which we worked with other 9 interns from Egypt, China, Indonesia, Poland, Nigeria, and Bahrain

I learned a lot of things, of which is the most important was how to organize your project and that a person must be proactive and learn from previous mistakes

And I learned that if your project is related to a big organization like AIESEC, you must put different plans in mind, in case anything went wrong in the future.

Because problems happen suddenly, and sometimes you need to handle them as fast as possible to avoid any losses.

In my case, there was a problem that the drivers were not flexible with learning a new language and solving such a problem needed a lot of thinking and planning and was very challenging. And I am sure if we had enough time, we could have managed to come up with a great strategy and help the manager avoid such problems on the longterm.

I cannot wait to go through this experience again and go on an internship somewhere else with AIESEC. I learned and gained a lot of experience

Finally, I want to thank both AIESEC Cairo University and AIESEC Ankara and I am looking forward to continuing my AIESEC experience

Alaa El Sayed & Soumaya Zahran in Nanjing, China

“People never learn anything by being told, they have to find out for themselves.”

We will start with the end. YES we've been to China, and hell yeah … CHINA IS MAGNIFICENT!!

I’m Alaa El Sayed, Senior year in Computer Science in The British University & I'm Soumaya  Zahran in Business Information System Helwan University. 

We actually call it “China Chapter”.  It was a life time experience, we've been through a lot, good & bad times, no words will be ever enough to describe or talk about such a great experience, it's a life changing one. No matter how long we write or speak about it, we will never be able to express our feelings regarding this internship, one just has to LIVE IT !

Our project was about culture, we had to represent Egypt in every 

possible way, through costumes, flyers, brochures, music, even language :D. 

Despite the 

difficulty to communicate with Chinese people, we managed to do it, even by pointing or signing or even dancing :D. They learned a lot about our traditions and culture, and we did as well. Not only Chinese culture, we've learned a lot about different cultures like Russian, German, Canadian, American, Brazilian, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Finish, Italian, Indonesian as we lived and work with people from all of these countries. It's a very good thing to have a friend in each of those countries. We learned that we, youth all around the world, want the same things eventually, just in different packages. Having different beliefs and values and sticking to them, doesn't mean you can't enjoy what you are doing and this is living the 

culture DIVERSITY ! 

Then the adventure moved to another phase… The Kinder Garden!!                                                                        

What was good about this internship is that we experienced working in more than one field, we started with the cultural project in the "Chinese Amusement Park" . We got to work in a Kinder garden where we dealt with very cute Chinese children who surprised us with knowing some basic English ! :D

We were so lucky that we had the chance to work as a CEED with AIESEC-NJU, where we had a great experience. We got to help with interviewing new AIESEC members, and we took part in more than one conference in different cities like Shanghai as facilitators and as delegates in Nanjing conference.

  

Let’s just don’t mention the food as it was a sensitive issue.

We didn’t really suffer that much, we managed to overcome this problem    apparently since we are still alive *Yeay*. Seriously no worries.. you will survive, we are just joking haha.

Our project was in Nanjing city but who would go to China without visiting Beijing the capital city and Shanghai? Here are some of our great  memories, best unforgettable moments and good friends.

China was a life changing experience and going through it with a friend together was one hell of an adventure with its ups and downs, good and bad times, meeting new people, depending completely on ourselves, following our dreams, learning new stuff in the other side of the world and living DIVERSITY.

This was actually our best summer and the fact that we now have a home in each country gives us an indescribable feeling <3. We will never ever forget such an amazing experience and we already miss everything there, people and the places.

Big & huge thanks to AIESEC CU ! :* 

 The End of the Chapter…

Maged Moustafa in Ahmedabad, India

 

 

Maged Moustafa is my name, 24 years old, and a future chemical engineer. My favorite nickname now is the "Indian looking Egyptian".

15/7/2012 was the initiation of my life time experience, when I had my first cultural funny shock.

 

 

To someone interested in European culture, India was my last choice, but after going there, it's now my first choice for a cultural exchange and cultural experience.

Working with NGOs was my work there besides working on a global village in PDPU (Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University) Ahmedabad.

 

 

 

 

For me at the beginning, cultural exchange is to know alot about the country and the culture you are present at, but after sometime I knew its within the people. You can never know about all of the Indian culture in just 5 weeks. It needs a life time, but after going there for 5 weeks, you will definitely know that you will go back again to MAGNIFICENT INDIA.

 

 

 

Lots of brothers and sisters from all over the world, lots of experience, lots of fun, and a huge learning process that will affect your personality.

 

My stay was in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. I've travelled also to Udaipur and wished to travel more, but I decided to go back again and travel all over India.

 

Thank you AIESEC for giving me the chance to be a better person, thank you AIESECers (in Egypt & in India) you all have the same vision and mission, you work for the same purpose, thank you for not letting down our TRUST.