By AFS Slovakia
EVA programme Slovakia – Finland
If you want to learn more about the work and care of hosting mothers, we have an excellent programme for you: the EVA programme puts the spotlight on hosting mothers. It is not for the first time that Slovak hosting mothers share their rich practise in hosting with others, this time an exchange had been organised with Finnish hosting mothers.
Distant Finland, an interesting country not only for its history, but for its present as well, became the home country for a group of Slovak EVA hosting mothers in July. The usually cold, rainy north was gradually changing into a warm place with tempatures reaching 30 degrees Celsius, which was nice given the various activities the Finnish mothers with their families had prepared for us, including visits of The Southern Ostrobothnia District Musem, Alvaro Alto Cultural and Administrative Centre, Sara Haarpaniemi gallery and a lot more.
We were warmly welcomed in their families, they offered us an opportunity to understand their values and their way of living. The exchange made us understand why people feel comfortable and relaxed when visiting or staying in Finland. Their healthy way of life is unseparately connected with a regular Finnish sauna or a dive into the Finnish lakes, beautifully located in never ending Finnish forests. Our Finnish hosts showed us how Finland and its people is a place which enriches lives of other people.
EVA programme Finland – Slovakia
Some beautiful Indian summer days in Slovakia in October proved to be a very suitable time to spend with a group of visiting Finnish hosting mothers. It was a great opportunity to share experiences of hosting exchange students in our families. It’s interactions like this that motivate us to open our houses to even more participants of AFS programmes and to look for additional ways to make hosting more attractive.
A welcoming ceremony with bread and salt symbolized our respect for our guests, accompanied with musicians and dancers in regional costumes, typical for our folk culture with its very own charm. In Slovak houses wood carvings and well known Slovak Bethlehem and folk ceramics, mix well with today’s style of living in Slovak families. We’re proud of our historical capital and other parts of our country with highlights such as the Diocesan Library, the Nitra castle, local theatres and other places of interest. It helped the Finnish hosting mothers to create an image of what Slovakia and its people are like.
Through the EVA programme, Intercultura Slovakia showed its quality and potential as one of the growing national AFS organisations.
