We had the good fortune of connecting with Alysa Monterrosa, who has nearly completed one year abroad with the Youth Initiative Program in Sweden, and she has shared pieces of her experience below.
My time at the Youth Initiative Program has flown by!
After graduating from Highland Hall, I have been a participant in the international Youth Initiative Program based in Sweden.
I remember my first time in Sweden, arriving at this beautiful campus, jumping into the fjords that we can see from the windows of our rooms, the new energy and faces I got to meet of the people I now have cherished memories with, and all the times I spent in the surrounding picturesque forests of Ytterjarna. I was so curious about what the YIP program was and what all the participants had in store for the next 9 months that we had ahead of us. This is when I really started to explore new perspectives and thoughts that I think have helped shape me and support my inner growth.
Since we had a visa issue this year, we had to go on a 3-month outpost to India. The way in which I experienced India was really challenging because it was so different from the life I was used to living. We stayed in two very different places in India; one was Madurai and the other was Auroville. Imagine waking up early in the morning and seeing a monkey in your room who is stealing your stuff while the cars on nearby roads never stop honking. There are no traffic rules there like we have in the US. In Auroville, an experimental city that looks like a futuristic place which thrives on the ideology of human unity. We stayed at a guest house that was built in a European style. We drove scooters everywhere on the dirt roads, cows would stand in the middle of the road, and almost every day we drove to the beach during our break. I think that experiencing another country’s culture in this way was extraordinary.
I cannot forget my memorable internship in Leeds, UK. This is one of the things in YIP that stood out to me. I’m realizing that everything, up until the Forest Day event my group and I hosted, was very impactful. And even with the event itself, we accomplished so much and everything we had set intentions for was set out to be true. We all spent 5 weeks as a small group, growing from all the challenging days we went through together which were so valuable to me and it’s truly a part of me and what kind of person I am now.
And now, at this moment, I can’t believe I’m in my final months back in Sweden. We had put so much into running our Initiative Forum event which was a huge success in sprouting inspiration and hope to the participants. I gained special experience of hosting large groups of people during that event. Now that I’m looking back at my year in the program, I’ve really seen how much I’ve grown inwardly, to others and to this special, caring, and supportive community that I’m so grateful to be a part of. We are now starting the time where we are wrapping up towards the end of YIP, in the middle of the self-designed curriculum, really focusing on working on our personal initiative projects and I’m so excited to share what I’ve learned and what I have done so far in our presentations for my fellow “yippies!”
Everything about YIP has inspired me to continue to work on this personal path even after this is over. It’s truly a life-changing experience to be able to go through this with others that you know are learning and growing just as much as you are. It is so hard to explain in words a summary of how impactful and inspiring YIP is. This program is anthroposophical and alternative, hands-on learning, this is not like college, but I feel like the world needs this inspiration and motivation to take action that YIP sprouts from young individuals. I really recommend this program to anyone who is interested in what YIP has to offer.
– Alysa Monterrosa
