August: ESN Lisboa

Lisbon is one of the oldest cities in the world, it is known for its great architecture, and it is also the city of this months Section in the Spotlight, ESN Lisboa.
Its an active section with activities every weekend and the 30 active members work hard to show the exchange students that Portugal is about more than codfish and port wine.
The team ensures that the Erasmus students are not only introduced to some of Portugal’s most known and cherised places such as Algarve, Porto and Tomar, but they also arranges  barbecues, movie sessions, Eurodinner as well as wine tasting and cookins sessions to introdue Portugeese flavors and gastronomy.
The section also cooperates with other Portugeese section in the ESN National Football Tournament in Aveiro and the Erasmus National Meeting in Algarve.

For the Erasmus students in Lisbon, every Tuesday is known as the ”musicbox night”  This get-together always follows the traditional meeting at the “Erasmus Corner” - a street in the heart of  Bairro Alto - one of the coolest places to hang out at night and where all the Erasmus meet for a beer.  The section also arranges parties in some of Lisbon’s best clubs and a memorable beach party.

One of the projects that helped the new Erasmus integration was the Buddy
Programme. This project, which this year has joined together over 300 Erasmus
students and Portuguese enthusiastic participants, consists in attributing a Portuguese
student to tutor the Erasmus and help them to get involved with the Portuguese lifestyle and culture.
For the next semester, ESN Lisbon is already planning new initiatives concerning this
integration like the Tandem Language Project and Social Erasmus.

Regarding the best interests of the Erasmus students, ESN Lisbon has an office open
every week day and also has some partnerships such as with local banks, hostels, a
language school, a surf school, phone networks and many others - all of which to
guarantee the best services and the most comfortable life possible during each
Erasmus stay in Lisbon. The section is in contact with universities around Lisbon, they are
participating in Welcome Days and making themselves known throughout the University
Campuses. They have also written the ESN Guide and will continue to improve it throughout
the following semesters.

ESN Lisbon is also involved on both the national and international level of ESN. The section has members in the National Board of Portugal, they are organizing Cultural Medley for the second constecutive year and also SWEP in October.

ESN Lisbon has had a very busy year - and they intend to keep up the good work and
developing their section with the ever present Pallomeri spirit.