For eight days in July, the small coastal town of Volda became a temporary home for 22 young people from six countries — Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Georgia, Italy, and our hosts in Norway — for an Erasmus+ youth exchange built entirely around one idea: that most of us are never taught how to speak up.
Finding a voice through structure, not pressure
Rather than throwing participants straight onto a stage, the programme built confidence gradually — starting with one-on-one storytelling exercises, moving to small-group feedback circles, and only reaching a public performance on the final evening. Facilitators from three partner organisations designed the week to make space for people who’d never spoken in public before, as much as for natural performers.
"I came in terrified of being looked at. By the end, I wanted people to look at me."
That shift — from wanting to disappear to wanting to be heard — came up again and again in participant reflections. For a project focused on self-expression, it’s the clearest sign that the format worked.
What made this one different
Unlike a typical training course, Voice of Change ended with a genuinely public event: a storytelling night open to the local Volda community, not just fellow participants. Around 40 local residents attended, several of whom stayed afterward to talk with participants — exactly the kind of cross-cultural contact the project set out to create.
Four participants have already reached out about co-facilitating a similar format back in their home countries. If that happens, this won’t be the last you hear of Voice of Change.