ESN Riga History

If ESN international, established back in 1989, is almost as old as the Erasmus programme itself, ESN Riga was established just in 2003, and started from two independent organizations.

2003 – Welcome to ESN

The 25th country of ESN

Latvia became the 25th country of the ESN in 2003, when Gints Turlajs – an active Latvian business student returned from his studies in Denmark and attended ESN Council of National Representatives (CNR) meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania to present a newly established ESN section candidate. Gints became the first National Representative (NR) of Latvia, and the ESN section was registered with initial legal name “ESN Latvia” few months later. ESN Latvia was renamed ESN Riga in 2005, but is still the only ESN section in Latvia.

EsiLU

Early in its development, ESN Latvia merged with another international student focused organization “EsiLU” (“be in the LU”, from Latvian), led by Arturs Ernstreits, Girts Milgravis and Janis Bajars from the University of Latvia. EsiLU just had its first local activities - “Semester IN Party” in October and the very first international student trip to Tallinn in November. By the end of 2003 ESN Latvia was very active in both - organizing local activities, and taking part in ESN International initiatives.

2004 – Getting a Stable Ground

Both - ESN Latvia and EsiLU teams working together organized two big parties in the spring trimester – Semester Opening Party in February and Spring Sauna Party in April. The organization also had its very first Escape trip to Liepaja and took part in the sport games of the University of Latvia in Engure. In March Gints participated in ESN Annual General Meeting (AGM) in Helsinki.

After one year of operation, ESN Riga had grown to a 10 people team with a good coordination and well-functioning buddy/ mentor system. In the fall semester ESN repeated the Escape trip to Liepaja, organized the second trip to Tallinn, and ended semester with a big Christmas party. Gints Turlajs and Natalja Tocelovska participated in the CNR meeting in Tallinn in September. In the end of 2004 Natalja become the president of ESN Riga and the NR of Latvia.

2005 – ESN Riga Goes International

2005 was a time for the ESN Riga to go international. The new leader Natalja organized ESN International Board meeting in Riga in the middle of February. In March a five people delegation attended the AGM Gdansk, where Natalja was elected the Treasurer of ESN International. During her mandate in the international Board Natalja stayed involved in ESN Riga coordination. Inese Grate became the NR for one year, but Natalja took over the responsibilities again after the AGM Krakow.

The year was not less colorful back in Latvia. ESN Riga organized a welcome party in February, excursion to Vidzeme in March, pub-crawling with Estonian exchange students in April, and the third Escape to Liepaja in May. Spring 2005 concluded with a large Farwell party.

During the autumn semester ESN went pub-crawling again, organized the forth Escape to Liepaja and ended semester with an Eurodinner in November.

2006 – In The Same Old Way..

In 2006 ESN Riga continued activities in a more or less casual manner. The organization had two trips in spring semester – a skiing trip to North West Latvia (Valmiera) and a trip to Tallinn.  International students could also participate in a pubcrawl and Eurodinner.

In the fall trimester ESN Riga organized the fifth Escape trip to Liepaja and the fourth trip to Tallinn, as well a traditional Latvian sauna party and Eurodinner in the end of year.

2007 – The Year of Changes

ESN Riga started 2007 with an orientation game in Riga and a “Get Together” party. Later the organization for the first time tried a new trip route to Daugavpils. That was definitely a unique experience for all international and even Latvian students with wet snow lasting two days and bus breaking down three times on rural roads of East Latvia. ESN had another sauna party, as well Natalja and Inese went to Prague to participate in the AGM.

In April ESN Riga for the first time planned a trip to Russia. Saint Petersburg was chosen as the final destination, however organizing anything with Russia took more time than expected, in addition there were visa problems, so trip was eventually postponed for a year. Instead ESN Riga team attended Museum Night in Riga and actively involved in the Sport Games of LU in Saulkrasti.

By the summer of 2007 ESN Riga had very well established relationships with the international department and the Students Union of the University of Latvia, as well large experience in organizing different activities for international students. After four years of being president and three years of being NR Natalja Tocelovska left ESN to focus on her carrier and a new team – Santa Jastrebova, Madara Apsalone, Anastasija Belostocka, Linda Ribakova and Emilija Alijeva - took over the leadership with broader vision of ESN Riga in Latvia and on international level, and Madara Apsalone became the NR of Latvia. The five ESN girls spent summer evenings in a small café in Old Riga planning activities for fall trimester and learning to run the organization.

The same summer ESN Riga started collaboration with the Academic Programme Agency (APA) of Latvia and soon extended communication also to other universities, with its activities targeting over 70 % of all the exchange students in Latvia. APA also helped ESN Riga to organize the first two day networking meeting for all the exchange students in Latvia called “Europe in one House”, which under the name of “Goodbye party” later became a tradition for ending each semester.

By September the new board was ready to welcome international students in Riga. For the very first time ESN Riga organized an orientation week in collaboration with the Students Council of the University of Latvia (LUSP). The event was very successful. ESN Riga team organized the 6th Escape trip to Liepaja, the first ESN trip to Stockholm and one more to Vilnius and Trakai in Lithuania. Organization also started regular movie nights in the Reznas dormitory of the LU. Emilija initiated Arabic night. Finally “Europe in one House” attracted 80 participants from 9 universities.

Madara as the new NR attended two ESN International meetings - CND in Winterthur (Switzerland) and CNR in Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), as well represented ESN International in an European Youth Forum meeting in Brussels.

 
By the end of the year ESN had well functioning team with 5 board and 5 non board members. Martins Misans joined the board. ESN team went for a two day trip to Tallinn to celebrate the success of the first trimester working together.

2008- in a Full Speed

ESN Riga started the spring of 2008 with a complete, well working team and lots of ideas for new activities. Semester started with a short training for new buddies and an orientation week. Special information brochure was prepared for international students in all ESN Riga partner universities. Spring of 2008 was also quite unique, as 2 of ESN board members participated in an international exchange themselves – Santa was an Erasmus student in Valencia, Spain and Madara - an ISEP student in San Jose, California. Many meetings were held online and much communication done through e-mails.

During the spring semester ESN had two trips – to Kurzeme in West Latvia and, finally, to Saint Petersburg. Both were highly enjoyed by exchange students. In addition ESN had an African night, took part in the LU sport games and had a nice goodbye event for students from many universities. Madara, Santa and Anastasija participated in the AGM Besancon in France.

Spring was also the time, when ESN Riga decided to join the PRIME – Problems of Recognition in Making Erasmus – project. By the end of the year 7 universities participated in research. In summer ESN Riga created its very first yearbook about activities in the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008.

Fall semester was even busier. Going back to the old good routes, ESN Riga had its second trip to Vidzeme with a unique element – exchange students met Maris Strombergs - Latvian BMX Gold medal winner of the Beijing Olympic Games. Fifth trip to Tallinn was combined with the second trip to Stockholm. Spain was chosen to be the culture night destination and semester, as always, was started and finished with a huge event in a guest house out of Riga.

2008 was also an important year for ESN, because ESN Riga became a full member in the National Youth Council of Latvia (LJP). Youth Council highly valued ESN experience promoting youth mobility in Europe and in some month ESN people were already involved as experts in the National Youth Week of Latvia and “Young People within the building of a European knowledge based society” French Presidency conference.

2009- we can!

More than a year “in office” by 2009 ESN Riga team had enough experience and people to go beyond the casual activities. Semester started, as always with trainings for new buddies and introduction weeks for students. Students had a great opportunity to see the West Latvia – Kurzeme and for the second year Saint Petersburg, which was sold out in few hours. International day was as big as never before – foreign universities sent over that much PR material, that one could find various stickers, pens and brochures around the Faculty of Economics and Management even several months after the event. Culture nights took students to Italy – for a big surprise event was attended by the Italian ambassador in Latvia, as well ESN Riga decided that finally it is a time for a Latvian night. Spring semester finished with a wonderful networking, party, barbecue and night swimming event in coast town Engure, while fall semester with Latvian sauna and tons of white snow – the first many southern students experienced in their life.

ESN Riga team used time to engage in many less ordinary activities too. February was a time for co-organizing national Youth Intelligence Forum „Ideas and Opportunities 2009”. In April ESN Riga got a Board position in the National Youth Council of Latvia. Soon it did a study visit to a prospective ESN section in Lithuania. For the first time international and exchange students from Latvia could enjoy ESN Sea Battle cruising with nearly 2000 other students from Scandinavia. ESN Riga members actively attended ESN events - CNR Skopje, AGM Utrecht, CNR Porto, CNR Novi Sad, ESN Celebrates, NEP, CND Athens … and  other mobility and education related ones. 4 ESN Riga members participated in Bulgaria Education Summer Training (BEST) summer school in Bulgaria.

In 2009 ESN Riga carried out two big projects – Give 20 fundraising project for children education and wellbeing in Bhutan and Problems of Recognition of Erasmus (PRIME). 7 Latvian universities participated in PRIME and a national result dissemination conference was organized collaborating with the Academic Programme Agency of Latvia in Riga with 35 international coordinators and education experts taking part in it. In the second semester ESN Riga became a pilot section of ESN Exchangeability project for making mobility an opportunity also for disabled people.

2010 +

2010 came with new partners and new projects along with ESN Riga already well-established local activities. The State Education Development Agency took over national management of the Erasmus Program in Latvia, and ESN started its collaboration with the agency.

Exchangeability resulted in a successful project, and the coordinator Dana Behmane involved many professors and university staff in a working group addressing this problem. Another success story was Social Erasmus. Coordinated by Zane Boreiko, this project brought international students to Latvian schools, and linked ESN to various green activities. Later ESN Riga involved in PRIME 2010-2011 to continue addressing student concerns in recognition of courses and qualifications gained abroad.

In summer of 2011, ESN Riga elected a new board. Santa Jastrebova continued responsibilities of the president and Madara Apsalone remained the NR, while few new and very motivated people complemented the leadership team: Lauma Uzula as the Event and Trip Manager, Margarita Solovjova as the Vice-NR and the Human Resource Coordinator, Jevgēnijs Lipinskis as the PR and Partnership Coordinator, and Jekaterina Pruceva as the Finance Manager.