ESN Trondheim

This month’s section in the spotlight, situated in the central of Norway, is ESN Trondheim! Trondheim was the first capital of Norway, founded in year 997, and is today Norway’s third largest city.

The ESN section in Trondheim was established in 1995 and consists of 23 active members whereas five of them are in the board. There are three committees who focus on different areas. We have the Buddy Committee, the Party Committee and the Partnership Committee. During the fall of 2010 the number of active members and activities increased a lot since previous years. The board and the active members meet every week to update each other on the activities going on and to ensure a good information flow between all members.

With the luck of having a country with such beautiful nature, the section organizes trips for their students to explore the beautiful landscape in Norway. They have one trip to Stadt, where they bring 30 international students to surf on the Norwegian waves. The surroundings are like a postcard with wonderful, green nature and mountains with sheep running around; panorama view of the beach and the ocean, and the sunset in the evenings makes Stadt even more magical than a postcard from the Mediterranean Sea. The section as well takes their students to Åre which is the largest ski-resort in Northern Europe, and to the Geirangerfjord (which is on the UNESCO World Heritage-list). On the local level the section organizes different activities such as dinners, theme parties, curling, speed dating, football challenge, and quiz nights.

The most outstanding event organized by the section is their six day trip to the stunning islands of Lofoten. After 16 hours traveling by bus the students gets to experience things like rowing a Viking ship replica, have a tour in a replica of a real Viking village at its original location, taste Viking food and try on Viking helmets and armor. The students live in small, cozy red cabins by the fjord with a view over the amazing mountains shooting through the water. At Lofoten they also arrange a biking trip for the students, as well as two hikes. During the visit the participants usually join each other in running into the ice-cold water, at what is actually a beautiful, sandy beach with turquoise water. At the beach, the participants taste local food like dried fish and “tran” (fish oil). A dinner is arranged in the night for the students and the party takes over from that point onwards. Usually, some people end up having a night bath around 4-5 AM.

The number of incoming international students in Trondheim is around 1 350 and during the fall of 2011 the section managed to recruit 500 local students to their Buddy program, which was a huge achievement for the section. ESN Trondheim is working on Erasmus in Schools as a part of their SocialErasmus project. This seems to be the most appropriate approach in Norway. During one day in April the international students will be making and selling food from their home countries to collect money for the Red Cross.

In the current National Board two out of four members are from ESN Trondheim. One of their members has as well been chosen Erasmus Ambassador of 2012. Additionally, more than half of the former NR:s are from this section and also two former Vice-Presidents of ESN came from ESN Trondheim. Last but not least, ESN Trondheim in January 2012 organized the SocialErasmus Coordinator Meeting in their beautiful city.

Every member in ESN Trondheim is really active and the section focuses on quality over quantity in their recruits. Worth mentioning is of course that two of the section´s local members have created The Responsible Party-song! The section tries their best to implement the projects of ESN International. Overall, ESN Trondheim is a strong and complete organization that has had a spectacular evolution and is now here to stay!

Written by: Caroline Thurmann Morand