Iris Visser shared her experience in "E Guru Gedara" project

Iris Visser

Sri Lanka. My destination which I had chosen quite randomly. One of my first ‘motivation e-mails’ went to his project called ‘E guru gedara’. Oshada, the guy who later appeared to be my housemate, interviewed me. Or I can better say, I interviewed him with all those question I had to ask because my mother wanted to know things like if the traffic would be really that dangerous (or maybe she didn’t really wanted to know, since I would decide to go to Asia anyway). Despite of the bad connection – so Oshada and me had to combine chatting and talking – I had a good feeling about choosing Sri Lanka and this project, so I just decided to go for it.

I hardly did know anything about Sri Lanka. Furthermore there was not much time to gather information since I had to finish my bachelor thesis before my internship and also there was a study trip to Budapest & Belgrado on the planning in April. Two weeks before this study trip I booked my flight (to leave my country at the 28th of April), called the doctor for some vaccinations and did only the most necessary preparations. Somehow I finished my bachelor thesis in time, so I could leave without any study obligations.

And there, on April 28, I was sitting at the window side of this huge plane of Etihad Airlines. No way back. An adventure of me, myself and I. About 24 hours later I arrived at the airport of Colombo. Sehan, a really nice (and unexpectedly tall) guy picked me up and brought me to my accommodation, called ‘the lc-house’ (lc = local committee, referring to the local committee of AIESEC). Because of his accent it was really hard to understand him, so had to ask ‘what?’ and ‘can you please repeat that?’ all the time. Luckily I got used to this accent quite soon.

In the lc-house I was warmly welcomed by Oshada and Elena. Elena is a German girl who had just finished her project. I was happy she was there to tell me about her experiences and that she could give me some banana’s because I was a little hungry arriving late in the evening…

The next morning I found this note, lying at my feet when I woke up: ‘GOT EXAMS, WILL BE BACK IN THE EVENING, take Elena to get some food, - Oshada’. I remember, the moment reading this note, as the day like yesterday, while it is already more than three months ago and so much happened. Anyway, my first day I went with Elena to Bentota and Casgoda to spot some sea turtles. Unless my mum’s talk about suicidal bus drivers, we went by bus. Bus 02, to be specific. During our bus ride we had to listen to a really terrible Sinhalese version of Enrique Iglesias while watching some flickering lights around little Buddha statues above the front window of the bus.

Buses were one of the first eye-openers of a different culture. You don’t only have a bus driver, but also a ‘bus worker’ (as I call it) who gathers the money from all the passengers (some of them try to receive more money of foreigners so you have to be careful by giving to fast your money, always ask ‘how much?’ before giving some random amount of rupees). Some of this bus workers also scream quite a lot, most of the time they only use two words: ‘HARRY HARRY HARRY HARRY’ and then, as far as I know, let the bus driver know it’s time to move on, and: ‘BAYLA BAYLA BAYLA BAYLA’ when the bus driver might start driving too fast while still some passengers have to get off.

Writing this experience story, I am thinking about what kind of ‘culture shock’ I have experienced, about which the AIESEC-organization was previously warning me about. To be for the first time in Asia, for the first time leaving ‘comfortable’ Europe. I guess calling it a ‘shock’ is a little effusive. I saw some poverty this first taxi ride from the airport… riding close to really small houses and seeing the people living there staring at our car… But that was only for a few minutes, the rest of Colombo seemed – through my eyes – quite developed (I drove about one hour from the airport to the lc-house in Moratuwa). And of course it was really hot, but I already could expect th
at. The first cold shower is definitely part of my ‘warm welcome’.

Elena told me about all the people who would stare at me. Lots of Sri Lankan people hardly see white people (or some even never have seen before) and might think you are ‘too’ beautiful (or extraordinary and in that way special? I should have asked this people why they were staring). She said it would not really mind if you’re wearing shorts or not, people would stare anyway (for the information: it’s normal to cover at least your knees and shoulders in Sri Lanka). Elena was right, the first days I really felt all those eyes looking at me. Later I got used to it.

Perhaps it’s because I am an open-minded and flexible person, but I never had a moment I felt this ‘culture shock’. One reason for that might the fact that I never have felt alone during my two month stay in Sri Lanka. There were always so many nice people around me, during my travelling but also during my internship I made friends with the trainee teachers of my age… Also I was not expecting any luxury. I was fine with the ants walking in colonies through our house, having no fridge (why do you need one when the take-away food is just so delicious? Especially the egg kohttu!). I had the basic things: a bed, a ventilator and a cold shower. An additional important aspect is that I felt safe at my ‘home’.

I spend my second day by reading my travel guide and planning where to go, feeling confident enough to just leave the next morning, together with my backpack, to start a little journey through Sri Lanka, alone. I didn’t like to leave Elena behind but also I really felt I wanted to discover the country and use my time as efficient as possible.

So I left the comfortable lc-house, took a 100 or a 101 bus to the railway station in Moratuwa, paid too much but didn’t want to start a discussion, went from the Moratuwa railway station to Colombo Fort and from there to Kandy (from there to Sigirya, Dambulla and Matale), Nuwara Eliya, Ella, Embilipitiya (from there to the Udawalawa National Park) and a week later, after meeting a lot of nice people (except for one tuk-tuk driver which tried to kiss me), seeing beautiful places, I arrived back at the lc-house.

Elena had left but Nora was back in her place, another German girl who was luckily really nice too (I knew I would live with her at the lc-house for a longer time). She already started the project (btw, didn’t tell yet: teaching English at the Girls High School in Mount Lavinia) a few days earlier so I decided to go along with her the next day, just ignoring the tiredness of my first incredible journey I just had.

It was quite easy taking a bus to Mount Lavinia, you only have to know where to get off since there is no one who will mention any name of a bus stop. From the right bus stop it was only a five minute walk to our school. 2000 girls from all ages were just walking around in and between all the buildings when we arrived. We walked into the staff room and then some kind of traditional Sinhalese song started and everyone stood up. I think this song takes too long, even if you understand what it’s about. Somehow we found a teacher who was apparently responsible for the timetables. Too bad there would not be any periods on my first two days at the school due to the preparation of ‘the exhibition’ and the exhibition itself.

Even though there was not much to do for Nora and me, we wanted to look around the classes at what the students were making (funny thing: some ware making a landscape of the winter, without they had ever seen it with their own eyes). Some students were really busy, using their creativity. Most of the students had no any clue about what to do and for most of the teachers this also seemed the case. I can describe my first impression in one word: chaos. At the same time I need to say that all the teachers and students were really friendly to me. Some students are really excited about seeing this two white girls walking around their school, yelling ‘HII! HOW ARE YOU?’, others are really shy. One moment Nora and I decided to sit down for a while (it was hot anyway). However, we ended in the middle of a big crowd of big brown eyes students asking for our signatures and drawings (their favorite: the peacock).

Sometimes you don’t know whether it’s an advantage or a disadvantage to be white.

After the weekend a fresh new week started. After some time and discussions I got my own fixed class: grade 8A. Unfortunately, I could only teach them English one period a day (of the nine periods a day). Every teacher has to be present from 7.30am till 1.30pm, so what to do with the rest of the time? I helped with the drama of a grade 7, who had a really nice teacher who brought many times banana’s from her garden (‘’without chemicals! Good for you’’), preparing the classes a little and sometimes I played piano to support the singing of the primary school students of some other English teachers.

So Nora and I tried to take initiative to make our days worth it, but some days were just boring and too hot to do active stuff. Several teachers were also quite unmotivated, but I can imagine that when the weather is hot and your salary is low, plus no one who is really controlling your work (I am wondering about the last one). Also the trainee teachers, with whom Nora and I talked a lot in the breaks or when we had no periods, were not that satisfied with the organization of this school. Still I won’t call my experiences bad at all. The students were although this conditions motivated to learn. Well at least I assume my students were, since they listened so well to me. Some of them didn’t make their exercises but I don’t think that’s because of a lack of motivation but rather about having no clue what to do or just feeling insecure about writing English.

I liked to teach. More than I expected. You might think 45 students of 13-14 year old would be a quite hard job, but I enjoyed to spend time with my grade 8A. Teaching them different things, sometimes serious grammar exercises, sometimes games like the hangman, making word clouds or a word snake. Also the students must have liked me. Every ending of a period they told me: ‘Please, come again!’. Besides teaching English I also taught them some Dutch and French words. I also would have like to do some research, interview teachers and give them advice about how the school could be improved. But, I wonder if that would have made a lot of sense. You have to respect the culture and I was already happy that they trusted me to do the things I did. The positive part of the culture is that people are really hospitable. One teacher asked Nora and me to have dinner at her place… Such things would never happen here in the Netherlands.

Before you know the six weeks of teaching already passed. The last day was the ‘English Drama day’. Some English teachers, Nora and me went to another school to see the drama’s of our school and two other schools. Our drama appeared to be the best and we won. It was nice to see that our students were so happy and so thankful that we helped them with the drama. Perhaps a good moment to finish our internship but it was also really hard to leave… some students even began to cry.

The combination of teaching English, being there on this Girls High School, travelling around before, after and in the weekends during the internship, was perfect. I feel like I’ve seen a lot of Sri Lanka (more than the moderate Sri Lankan person), met a lot of people (locals as well as other travelling people and interns) and learned a lot about the Sri Lankan culture. For example: I can eat with my hands and I know the taste of arrack, coconut and all kind of strange fruits.

I can write a lot more about of my experiences but I think I just wrote down the most important things. I can recommend everyone to visit Sri Lanka. It’s a nice country to travel around but it’s also really nice to do an internship to just understand the culture better and talking with the local people. If you have the chance, take it!

Climbing Adam’s peak and realize it’s too misty…

The lovely trainee teachers… eating with their hands

Exchange comes with challenges

I chose to have my exchange experience in Sunway University, Malaysia. It was a nice university filled with multi-cultural student body which colored up my experience even more. I enjoyed my time in Malaysia a lot, that I still believe it was one of the best decisions I have ever taken in my life so far. The name exchange comes with challenges. This is what we call stepping out of comfort zone. I did not grew up with a lot of comfort. I had many challenges, obstacles since my childhood. But I knew exchange experience was none of that I had before. And indeed it wasn’t. It was my first flying experience. I was less exposed to the procedure of travelling to another country. It was really challenging that I had to learn everything by experiencing. 
     
I believe my exchange experience taught me what life is, who I really want to be, what people expect  you to be and at last but not least AIESEC exchange experience taught me how to make the right 
decision at right time. AIESEC was the platform which made this experience a reality and made it truly inspiring as well. In the journey of creating leaders for the world, AIESEC has given me the wonderful opportunity of involving in a global community development project which I was able to make an impact to the society. I was attached to the project called #MOVE, which was about creating awareness of sexually transmitted infections among university and high school students around Sunway. The main project related to this was Choose to protect which was a workshop series on such infections and gender perspectives on relationships. I was holding the responsibility to do the workshop about gender perspectives on relationship as it directly affects to the transmission of such infections. I facilitated a lot of workshops convincing young teenagers to be careful about their relationships and taught them about gender perspectives. How boys think? How girls think? How do they react in certain situations? Etc. actually this was quite a nice experience even for me to learn such stuff. I really believe I could make an impact among those groups of people on the subject. 
             
Even if the nationalities and religions are a bit different from Sri Lanka, the surrounding and behavior of people seemed very close to me. Even the university students were not very different from people we do see here. For some reason some people were afraid to talk to us, but some became our best friends forever. Food was a bit different which the coolest experience was for me I had the opportunity to taste many different kinds of food that I won’t be able to find here in Sri Lanka. With the people I associated they did not really have a lot of cultural values like in us in fact I observed they have westernized more than Sri Lankans. Yet something made me more interested, that they still have a king in addition to their president for the country. That is something beautiful for such a developed country which Kuala Lumpur looked like New York but still they have a king.As an AIESECer I think I learned a lot through this exchange program. First, I have had an amazing real life experience of the procedure an EP should go through. As an OGXer I believe that is one important lesson I need to learn. Starting from the info session, until I came to the realization I had to keep track and find solutions to each and every problem that I faced. When I started my project, I had a broader image of how a GCDP project actualizes and what are the issues that need to be taken care of before realization. I took part in a project designing session for AIESEC in Sunway so I had that GCDP experience as well. I met different kinds of people to work with so that I equipped myself with working experience with different mindsets to achieve the same goal. That experience is valuable for me to contribution towards my LC in the future. Simply I had real life OGX simulation, a GCDP simulation and diverse working experience which geared me up for being an important AIESECer in the future. 

Last but not least, I had the amazing opportunity to attend the Local Leadership Development Seminar of AIESEC in Sunway. That was the loveliest of memories in my exchange experience. I learned a lot about leadership, public speaking, personal branding, presentations, conversations etc. Plus we did a lot of outbound activities which builds trust among each other, leading groups to achieve one target etc. I learned a lot of AIESEC square dances (jives) as well. So I believe in the AIESEC perspective, I had the most wonderful experience in my exchange.

Since my childhood I had this hunger to see a different country. As a less exposed, naive child from a village, I always wanted to explore the world, see how would it look like? I wanted to meet people there, talk to them and work with them. AIESEC has been a platform for me to achieve all my dreams and as well as to support building up my potential to be a leader. I discovered the leader, the speaker within me. I cannot thank you enough for the person you made out of me today.

Thank you everyone, who made this possible..!

Sandaru Karunasiri
Electrical Engineering,
University of Moratuwa

Indunil's AIESEC journey in Vietnam

I had my internship in the city of Ho-Chi-Minh in Vietnam. I worked on a project called SELF which focused on improving leadership skills of Vietnamese university students.

This experience was a great new challenge for me. I had many experiences in travelling but this was the first time I traveled alone. I experienced so many diverse cultures from people from various parts of the world and learnt how to work with them. The “cultural shock” I got and how I adapted to it was one of the greatest learning challenges in my life.

The working attitudes of each of these interns and the Vietnamese Organizing Committees (OCs) were different.  Sometimes the meetings and discussions became so intense that some OCs started crying. But it was just because everyone wanted the project to be successful. First I had some trouble communicating because the interns and OCs could not understand my accent as well as I could not understand theirs. I had to speak slowly than usual, but at the end everyone understood each other.

My experience in Vietnam was life changing as I was helping others in becoming leaders as well as I was learning from them to become my own leader.

AIESEC is what brought me to here as, if it wasn’t for AIESEC I wouldn’t be able to meet such amazing people and learn from their own experiences as well as make new experiences for me as well.

I had to work as a leader to a group of Vietnamese students and act as a mentor to them as well as help in conducting leadership workshops and presentations. The experiences I shared with them during those sessions and the guidance I provided made a huge impact as they were motivated in activating their leadership skills pursuing their goals at the end of this project.

There were many differences in the culture rather than similarities. Vietnamese people were very friendly and there was a great attention on foreigners. People would talk with me or say Hello. I had to stay with a Vietnamese family for these 6 weeks. So I was really exposed to their culture. Vietnamese people are ‘foodies’ and everywhere there were food stalls. The food was really different from Sri Lankan food and other interns had trouble eating Vietnamese food (eg: Blood pudding, snails, pig fat, dog meat). The traffic in Vietnam is crazy as the road is only filled with scooters and nobody would give space to cross the road. One of the first challenges for me was crossing the roads in Vietnam.

 

 

This internship also helped me to discover the ‘traveler’ within me. I traveled a lot with the other interns as well as traveled alone. I went a 900km journey alone in night buses as well as using an inland flight and couch surfed for the first time in my life. I learned to ride a motor cycle for the first time. And my first motor cycle journey was a 400km trip with my German friend to a place called Mekong. I met a lot of different people in this journey and had positive as well as negative experiences. My bike broke down in the middle of nowhere, got lost and had no way of contacting because my phone got soaked in rain water, got cheated by a shop owner who stole my key and forced me to pay a ridiculously high price for a cheap meal. But the good things about Vietnam and the friendly people surpass these negative experiences.

I experienced things in 6 weeks that would take years for some people to experience and each experience was a new learning point for me!

Indunil Herath
Department of Civil Engineering

Faculty of Engineering

University of Moratuwa

Wenuka's exchange experience in Vietnam

It was a time where I experience total freedom and I got much more experience from living alone. It  was not easy as we think. I really missed speaking in Sinhala when I was there. I think my internship gave me self-confident specially when communicating in English. I gained knowledge how to deal with an intern, especially with Europeans. Now I know what they feel and what they want from my experience.

AIESECers in Vietnam created a good work condition to me in the project and also guided me in first few days till I get used to Vietnam. I along with other seven interns had to teach communication skills and leadership skills in Vietnamese students. As I feel and as the attendees told, we have created an impact on their mind and believes which they can use for betterment of themselves and this world.  

I always tried to gain as much as experience I can from my limited budget was the biggest challenge I had to deal during my internship. I always had to manage my expenses and had to make some rough decisions not to be bankrupt during my internship.

It was a really nice, unforgettable, life changing experience which was a huge challenge at that time, but a sweet experience at the end of the day.

Wenuka Gunarathne
Department of Electronic & Telecommunication
Faculty of Engineering, University of Moratuwa

Internship to Malaysia - Chamal Perera

I decided to go for an internship to Malaysia to gain some valuable experiences to my life. So after the internship now I am really happy because I learn a lot from this tour.

First day, a day to remember

The flight I was about to take has overbooked. So they asked me to take the next flight if I won't mind it. Since the next flight is scheduled to fly 5 minutes after my original flight I decided to take the later one because airlines had to send someone to that. So they were glad that I helped them by taking the next flight and offered me to travel in the business class. I was overjoyed and took their offer.

Landing To Malaysia

After coming to Malaysia I had to take a bus to KL sentral, a town situated 60km away from the airport. Before taking the flight I had contacts with other EP of my project. So I was suppose to reach KL sentral to meet him. But it almost took 3 or 4 hours to find him because that town is really big. We had to travel to batu gajah, a town situated almost 250km from kl sentral. So we had to find the railway station to get a train. Unfortunately we missed our train by 5 minutes. So we had to wait for another 6 hours for the next train. I had a friend of mine in Malaysia, so I traveled with him to pass the time.

Name of other EP of the project is Ester. Me and Ester pick our train around 6 pm. And reached Batu gajah by 8 pm. When we reached the station, the president of non cooperated things in AIESEC UTP was there to pick us. He is Eric. Eric drove us to the UTP (University of technology Petronas)

We were amazed after seeing the university for the first time. I have never seen a university like that.

View of Village 4 from My room

Eric had arranged us a comfortable room there.

First week in UTP

UTP is divided into 5 main villages. So students live in those villages. Students all around the globe are studying here. We got our room in village 5. In our floor there were 12 graduates who are studying for their masters. They were from Spain,Italy,Ireland, UK, Argentina. So during the week I spend in UTP I had the opportunity to share experiences with them.

Graduates from Europe 

UTP Library,Biggest library i have ever seen

During the day time we used to roam in the university. I have never seen a library as big as UTP library. As I remember it’s consist with 6 or 7 floors. So it was a great opportunity for us to use that library.

During the evening time we played with students in UTP. We played soccer, table tennis. It was a new feeling for me to associate with strangers and to play with them.

Chancellor's hall  

We had to stay in the UTP for 6 days until Eric finishes his exams.

Moved to Sanathan Dharma Ashram

Eric and Rathana, two members from AIESEC drove me and Ester to the Sanathan Dharma Ashram. It was the place for me to work under the AIESEC project.

First day at the Ashram

At first when I came to the Ashram I felt like I am alone. I really experienced the culture shock for the first two days. They had a strict time table and all of them worked accordingly. All of them were really friendly and they all treated me as a brother. It was bit difficult for me to adapt for their food in first few days because they only eat vegetarian meals. But later I get used to it.

Sanathan Dharma Ashram is a home for parent less, abused and abandoned children.They all speak Tamil. Mr Aramban is the founder of the organization and he is the current president as well. He is a great human being. He had been involving in social works for almost 30 years. He is a father for all 48 children of the home. All children follow Hinduism as their religion. They worship Gods twice a day. And even they pray to their Gods before eating. I was able to see their culture and it was a great experience for my life.  

In the ashram we were asked to teach children and to help them with their education. So I tried my best to help them and to assist them. In the morning time most of the children go to school. So me and Ester had to teach to small children. All of them were so happy about us. And after all return from school we teach them subjects such as Maths, English, Science etc.

It was really hard to teach them as their English knowledge is poor. But somehow with the help of the Google translator I managed to translate necessary words to Tamil and managed to teach them.

Me and Ester traveled in weekends. Specially trip to lost world tambun, a water park 80 km away from the orphanage was amazing. Sometimes uncle Prem, driver of the Ashram took us around Sitiawan. All of them were very helpful.

Lost World of Thambun Water Park

They were my students 

There was an american lady in the ashram.She is travelling around the world for social works. Everyday she teaches yoga to children. I also learnt a lot from her. Sanathan Dharma Ashram is controlled by a board of senior citizens. Mr. Go also a member of the board. He visit the home very often. He is a retired general of Malaysian Navy. So i was able to learn plenty of stories about his life.

Training session 

Teaching time

Birthday Celebration

Preparing Letters to raise funds for the Organization

Some times it was really difficult to handle them all. They were chattering all the time. But did manage to handle them with the help of  uncle Aramban. Occasionally we had birthday celebrations as well. They had their own way of celebrating birthdays. 

She is special. She has an amazing ability in cooking

I also got the opportunity to participate for few cultural events in Sitiawan. Mr. Aramban always look after us and gave us many opportunities to see different things in the country. Sometimes we had some deep conversations about religious teachings. I am a Buddhist and they all were Hindus. We always respect the things in other cultures. He is a very matured person. So i  learnt a lot from him as well.

At Sitiawan annual Leo club conference 

Onam celebration - celebrate after obtaining the harvest 

Chinese temple

Confucianism

They gave me a great farewell when i leave Malaysia. I will never forget their lovely smiles and their lovely gifts. One day if i ever visit Malaysia i'll definitely go and visit them.

They gave me plenty of beautiful cards. 

Last good bye 

Through this internship I learnt a lot for my life. I got many experiences. I learnt about different people and different cultures. And most importantly now i have the courage to visit any country alone and do my stuff without any guidance.

Chamal Perera

University of Moratuwa

My internship experience in Malaysia

I'm a student of University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. After our first semester we have two and half month vacation.So I wanted to spend that time usefully. As a result of that I selected AIESEC internship to spend my 6 weeks with serving the community and have a life changing eexperience
Malaysia is the country I went for my internship.Under the supervision of AIESECer's in UTM, I worked in Amitabha Malaysia orphanage. Amitabha Malaysia is a NGO that do several community services such as look after orphan kids,recycling.donations,etc.My daily task was teaching the kids in the orphanage.And also we had some special days to do extra work.I'm not the only one who work as an intern in Amitabha orphanage.there is another Taiwan guy and two Vietnamese girls.
Our first big task was training the kids for their dance that they have to perform with us in their special festival at a shopping mall.Early it was not easy to me because I never dance before.But I took it as a challenge and practiced really hard.As a result of it we did it successfully.

After that our next task was promoting Amitabha Malaysia in a new year fesival. For that I wore as a chicken and enjoy the little children.It was really nice experience although it is very hard to wear it.we completed it successfully as well.

That was two main tasks we need to do during my intership period. During my time in Malaysia,I visited lots of places in Malaysia such as Malaka, Penang, Kuala Lampur, Singapore and met nice friends from various countries.Now I have friends from different countries which I never had before.

Finally, I would like to thank all the people who look after me during my time in Malaysia specially the people in NGO, AIESECER's in UTM and AIESEC for giving me this great opportunity to serve the community and giving me a life changing experience.

Janakith Iraj
University of Moratuwa

“Liao Bu Qi” GPN!!!

Educating middle-school students about environment protection, boost their English language skills and above all exploring a different culture with four other amazing people from four different countries!!!

Well this was never in my “to-do-list” of reaching the targeted goal of my life, before I became a proud member of AIESEC Colombo South.

Thanks to AIESEC, I realized life is not about having a perfect CV, but it’s about creating a unique “Story of my life”

My Global Community Development Programme internship with AIESEC SYSU, Mainland of China not only added a bunch of beautiful experiences to my life, it also opened up a number of opportunities to develop my personality as well as the AIESEC career.

On 12^th of April, landing at the Canton Airport with hardly any English speaker around made me want to take the next flight back to Sri Lanka.But when I saw the cheerful and warm, friendly faces of my AIESEC buddies waiting for me holding a huge board with “ni hao Chathu” on it, I was overwhelmed with happiness.

Along with my other team mates from India, Germany, Tanzania and Mauritius I has the most effective time period of my life.

Seeing the curious, eager faces of those Chinese middle- school kids, waiting for us to tell them about our culture, working with them hand-in-hand to protect environment, playing all the interesting games with them made each day special and something to look forward to.

Exploring the amazing culture, visiting places with the AIESECers of SYSU was an experience no tourist can get. And YEY!!! Now I’m an expert in using the chopsticks and a fan of authentic Chinese food.

One of the most important things was building up an unbreakable friendship with people from different cultures, backgrounds and mindsets. I would proudly say that this made me open-minded, flexible and a balanced person.

The outgoing and the reliable personality I believe I have developed, and the connections I built up with my international friends also opened up new paths to develop my AIESEC career and as a result now I’m a proud member of the National Support Team of AIESEC Mainland of China.

So,
Let’s make a difference and feel  the difference…..Take the first step to create your own life story!!!

Chathurika Warnakulasuriya
University of Moratuwa