ESN (Erasmus Student Network) is the largest student organisation in Europe with a connected network in over 30 countries. This allowed us to bring people from Frankfurt, Sweden and Belgium all the way to Aberystwyth just for a weekend! The shared knowledge, resources and experience allow us to bring far greater benefits to the international and local community - Ben Lake actually reminded us to do this at our conference by saying 'do the little things.' One of the things we have brought to Aberystwyth is the ESNcard which has brought students thousands of pounds of discounts and the successful trip to Edinburgh last semester. Get your ESNcard here: https://www.abersu.co.uk/society/7357/
During our conference, 5 of our members were elected to national board positions within ESN UK which will see us helping our roughly 20 sections in universities from Edinburgh to Southampton and attending international training and conferences.
The members now in these positions are:
National Board
- Meg Bennett - National Events Manager, who will run trips of several hundred students!
- Kelly Gomes - Communication Manager, who will make sure that all of our social media and internal communications are effective.
National Board Support
- Stephen Kingdon - Partnerships Manager, who will talk to businesses and recruitment agencies to get even more discounts and opportunities for our members
- Gosia Kupiec - Employability, who will look at ways to better promote the benefits of student mobility and working with partners and students to develop their skills.
- Wojciech Salski - Health and Wellbeing, who will work on a number of things such as sports with our International Erasmus Games, promoting mental wellbeing and responsible partying.
We will have a lot of work to do as ESN in the UK is growing rapidly and in a very active position in the current nature of politics which only pushes us to be more aware.
The wider opportunities in the network have inspired us all, as well as the extremely positive culture of working in such a diverse community as with international students. Being a part of such a big community that understands our values and goals allows us to accomplish incredible things together!
Our motto is 'unity in diversity' - I think that this is a valuable ideology as understanding how we can work together coming from different backgrounds is how we believe that we should face any challenge. This is an idea we are all proud to stand for.
All being well we should be holding a trip to Amsterdam at the start of April which will be a lot of fun! If you would like to experience a little of what I am talking about then it would be great to see you there, so just make sure you keep up to date on Facebook and Instagram.
If you would like to find out more about ESN Aberystwyth go to: