We are always pleased to be able to host interns from other parts of Europe. here are views from two young people from Italy.

Brexit viewed by an Italian

Durham, September 6 2019

 Hi, I’m Anita, I’m an Italian student and at the moment I’m in Durham doing my three week internship at Durham County Council. When my teacher told me that the Erasmus programme had accepted me, the only thing I was thinking about was how grateful I was to have this experience. But only a few days later I realised that Brexit was taking place, so I stopped for a second my happiness and thought if it would be easy doing my internship while Brexit is implemented.

 

Nowadays Brexit is becoming one of the main topics in Italy. Everybody is talking about what could be its benefits or its disadvantages; even if not so many people, especially young people, know what Brexit is because they don’t even know about Italian politics.

In Italy, we can distinguish two main groups of young people: there are those who study hard to have good results at school and then to find a good job when they finish studying; and there are those who don’t care about their personal culture and, as a consequence, they don’t study and don’t aspire to find a good job. The hard-workers usually wanted themselves to improve more everyday, so they are always informed about politics or what is going on. With them it’s easy to talk about Brexit and about what they think, instead of talking with a random boy who laughs or makes fun of you just because you are talking about something which isn’t really current. And that’s a pity because, in my opinion, everybody should know a little about our world and what is going on these days.

On the one hand, I think that the UK has some advantages because it will become much more independent both in political and economic way. They will provide only for their nation and not for Europe in general, so for all its countries. They will not have immigrants, therefore the population will be composed only for UK’s citizens and, maybe, they will become more patriotic than they are now.

On the other hand, Brexit will be a big problem for us, European citizens, because we will no longer work in the UK and we have to show a passport whenever we go there. Also a lot of opportunities will disappear. A lot of young people come to the UK for studying or working because there are not as many opportunities as here, so they will be forced to remain in their native country hoping for some chance.

To sum up, I think that Italian students must be informed about politics and what is going on nowadays and they should have an opinion about Brexit.  And I think that the British people didn’t think about what will be the consequences of their choices and how it will damage our future and our opportunities.

Anita Galante

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Hi everyone,

I’m Beatrice, I’m 18 years old and I come from Padua, in Italy. I’m a student at a language high school called “Pietro Scalcerle” and I learn 3 different foreign languages: English, German and Spanish. My school offers students lots of opportunities to go abroad because they want us to improve our languages but more importantly because we must be able to overcome difficulties on our own without having someone tell us what to do.

At the moment I’m in England because I got a grant from a European project called Erasmus+, which gives the opportunity to a lot of European students to spend a period in a foreign country studying or doing an internship.

Here in Durham, I’m working at Durham County Council as an intern in the international relations office.

I’m so glad to be here because I can discuss things with people from other cultures and lifestyles and also I can see the things from different points of view.

Personally, I think that the best thing you can do is travel because it’s an experience that opens your mind, improves your skills and your language level, helps you to become much more independent and mostly teaches you to be a world citizen.

I hope I will come back to England again to have another experience like this one because the time here passed very fast and I still have lots to discover.

Beatrice Garon