My ISFiT
Do you have a story to tell?
If you have been a participant or a volunteer at a previous ISFiT and you have a story to share with us we are listening!
Has ISFiT been important to you in any way? Did ISFiT inspire you to start a project in your home country? Did you meet the love of your life at ISFiT? Have you invited your host family to live with you?
If you have something to share: please e-mail to myisfit[at]isfit.org.
-ISFiT is much more than a student festival!
The statement is expressed by Selene Biffi, an Italian girl who participated in 2005. According to her ISFiT is an opportunity to grow, both personally and professionally. – It was truly one of the best experiences I have been lucky to have, she claims.
She explains how participating at the workshop “student in struggle”, other meetings and social activities helped her to put things into perspective. Most important was the workshop. Almost all of the participants at her workshop came from conflict areas. By spending time with them she experienced how students’ conditions vary, and there she realized that not everyone can take for granted the same as she does. She felt privileged to meet them and take part in the same workshop as them.
Inspiration and energy
–At ISFiT there is an atmosphere of “can do”, it gave me the right inspiration and bolt of energy that I needed to pursue my dream, Biffi continues. The atmosphere she is referring to is created by the students’ belief in the possibility to make a contribution to change the world. At the workshop she got an understanding of how students who live in conflict areas are able to make a difference in the world in spite of difficult conditions. By meeting these students she got the inner strength and motivation to keep going in difficult times and even though she doesn’t know the outcome of her effort.
She uses the energy and motivation she got in Trondheim in her work for empowering young people through the organization Youth Action for Change, YAC. Only one month before she went to Trondheim she officially established YAC, and with new inspiration and impulses from ISFiT she continued working for the organization when she got back to Italy.
Award winning organization
YAC offers courses to young people, and those who participate achieve theoretical and practical knowledge and skills. The courses have different themes like human rights, gender and sustainable development. – One of the main goals is to inspire and empower young people worldwide to become active change makers in their own communities, Biffi explains. YAC has received international attention and recognition, and received praises and awards from the UN, the World Bank and Oxfam.
AfEiM - Alliance for development in Mozambique.
We are two former particpants of ISFiT 2007 our names are Nelson Tchamo from Mozambique and Pia Otte from Germany. We took part in the workshop “Heal the world” .
Student contribution
Through the workshop we as students realized that we can contribute to change the world. ISFiT and its international environment inspired us to continue working on international issues after the festival. We realized that we could not just go home and forget about our experience and our influence we have in the world. ISFiT gave us the motivation and was the initial point for us to found the association AfEiM (Alliance for development in Mozambique). AfEiM aims to work in and for Mozambique in terms of support of public schools and information meetings about the country in Germany.
Tchamo to ISFiT 2009
Back in Germany it was not difficult to find other motivated students who wanted to join this project and to found an association. In this way it happened that AfEiM was officially registered as an organization in June 2007. Since the foundation AfEiM organized several information meetings at the University of Giessen. These meetings aim to inform people in Germany about the African country and to promote a real picture of Mozambique. In addition two of the members from Germany traveled to Mozambique in August 2008 and donated materials to a primary school in Fiche, Boane district in the Southern part of Mozambique. Furthermore during the local Christmas market in Giessen, AfEiM was able to organize a small information point about Mozambique where people could donate for learning materials as for example books for the primary school in Boane. This year Nelson Tchamo is a participant of ISFiT again which gave AfEiM the opportunity to invite him to Germany as well in order that he can take a part in the planning process of an exhibition about Mozambique in Giessen.
