This has been a regional EYP session but not just any regional EYP session.
I spent the weekend before my high school final exams in Ourense, Galicia. Although I took the risk of losing hours of study time, I couldn’t be more proud to have been part of it.
It was a special session, as a member of the EYP but also as a media team member (MTM). This was my second session acting in such a role and I couldn’t be more proud of the outputs. Even if few understand what it means, I was able to present two of my projects during the General Assembly (when most of them are usually submitted within 3 days after the session). As always I made my reels, which I now can’t stop watching on loop, and I also took lots and lots of photos.
And as proud as I am of everything I’ve done as an MTM, the part of this session that stays with me is the people I’ve shared these days with. And since I can’t even try to explain how grateful I feel, I leave here some excerpts from a letter I wrote right after the session, dedicated to a very special person who I know will be reading this.
«An EYP session is a place and an experience at the same time, it’s people and a city that will never meet again. It’s the ability to connect with other people and share a project together. It’s losing your shame and knowing that you won’t be judged at any time. It is the security of knowing that they will do everything possible to make you feel good and enjoy the moment. It is knowing that you will be accompanied in the brief journey you share and that they will do their best to fill it with laughter, memories and affection. It’s everything that goes into the passion of bonding. At the end of the day, the beauty of the session lies not in the endless transfers or last minute crises. When the day is over, you remember those laughs and late-night moments when you had to run in front of a police car, maybe with a beer on you, go in search of a lost backpack, carry endless boxes, or walk around in torn pants.
It remains in the end who you take with you on the way back. With whom you hope to see you anywhere in Europe, knowing that it will be just as spontaneous and beautiful, knowing that no matter the distance or the time that has passed, there will be laughter and new anecdotes to accompany your stories. It’s not you or them, it’s a “you”… a “we” that has been born in a genuine way, that you hope will never disappear.
I promise I could not be more grateful for the people I have met. People for whom, perhaps for no apparent reason, I would move mountains and bring the moon down on them even without them having to ask.
[…]
I arrived as half a team, and I left having been part of a unique session, of a brief but intense family, becoming a little more part of the family.
Thanks EYP, thanks to all of you who make these emotions and memories possible. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.«
Only the people who were there know how magical this session was.