The 7th episode of our comic book ”Empowered From Within” is out!
Discover Sam’s testimony about his Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility project in Sweden:

Project supported by ECORYS UK and the Lifelong Learning programme (Now Erasmus+) of the European Union.

My name is Luke Fisher and I have just returned from a 4 months Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility project in the north of Sweden. The project was based in an organisation called IDEUM in which I worked in the carpentry and metal workshop. Before I went as preparation to a taster day and I completed an induction in carpentry in Bradford with my sending organisation.

While I was there we worked on everything from rest cabins for the mountains and ski runs and outdoor BBQ’s to prayer benches for a physiotherapist. Prior to this project I had only done wood work in school so it was quite different to anything I had done before. I was trained how to use all the different tools around the workshop and aloud freedom to make mistakes and learn from experience. One of their sayings was ‘you learn from your mistakes’ another phrase you will hear allot in north Sweden is ‘fika time’ but that just means coffee break (unless you speak Italian).

Lunches where a communal time of the day where everyone sat together around a big table and had a chat. It was a great time to get to know everyone who is working in the building even if you don’t work with them.

In your free time there was allot to do as you are surrounded by snow or ice. During the winter most activities are more extreme like skiing or snowboarding and snowmobiles and ice hockey (which is bigger than football over there!) to skeet shooting and ice fishing all of which I tried while I was there. The organisation also put on activates like visiting a new town or to go watch an ice hockey game and team building games which help you get to know the other volunteers. But if that wasn’t enough you can always go to them and ask to do an activity and they will sort it for you, like me and a group wanted to go visit a town for the weekend and stay in a hostel so they gave us a car and said ‘enjoy, just don’t enjoy it too much as we need the car back in one piece’.

The night life is very different, the village is about the same size as the village I live in, in England but where we have 8 pubs in our town they have 1. It is very expensive to go to the pub so most people drink at home then go to the pub a couple of hours before closing just to meet people and arrange to go back to someone’s house for a party.

The people in Sweden in general especially the youth of the population can speak English as they get allot of English tv and video games, but I found they are very shy and don’t often like to speak English (unless they are drunk then they will speak to you for hours!) but all in all I found them very friendly and welcoming being welcomed into many people’s houses weather it was for a party or just to go and chat with their family and eat tea with them.

I think from this project I have become a lot more confident which is in no small part down to my carpentry mentor who was very encouraging and always very helpful. I have also learnt a lot of skills in carpentry and I am trained to use all the heavy machinery from the workshop thanks to this Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility. I also feel more ready for work as before I went I was on benefits for over 6 months and didn’t really want to work but now I feel like I am ready to work and allot more confident that I could get a job I desire not just something to pay the bills.

Luke Fisher, Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility trainee.

Click here to discover the project.

Leonardo Da vinci Mobility project part of Gaining  Through Training
and supported by ECORYS UK
and the Lifelong Learning Programme
of the European Commission.