I am here to present you my experiences during my exchange program in Italy. I am also representing my country, Turkey.
First of all, thanks to our director, Ivo Benedetti, for choosing me to make this speech.
I am Zeynep Yilmaz and I’m 19 years old. I live in Istanbul which is the most crowded city in Turkey. Turkey surrounded on three sides by the sea and has for seasons in one year. Our main language is Turkish and our regime is democracy. Lion students in Turkey have to take an exam and need to get a good score to have experiences with this program.

I arrived the 24th of June and I have spent eleven days with my host family in Vigevano. My host father was Massimo, my host mother was Desy, my host sisters were Lucrezia and Corinna and my host brother was Ottavio.
I never felt like I was away from home when I was together with my host family. I felt like I was a little part of their routines. There is only one small difference; I don’t know how to speak Italian.
In my opinion, sharing a home is the best way to communicate and understand each other. I had chance to observe the Italian culture and vice versa.
When I look back and ask myself “What did I learn from my first exchange program?” I'd have to say I learned how to live on my own and respect others. I learned how to enjoy life.
At home, I always behaved the way my parents wanted me to behave and think like my country wanted me to think and follow a certain group, despite my own beliefs. I am sure every student has experienced this for once. I believe I found my personality in these three weeks.
This exchange program helped me to connect with friends of my age. We all have different hobbies, different cultures, different languages and different races but we are come together and accomplished the same goal, to share and learn our culture to each other.
Where I come from, people never seem to compromise with each other because of the political situation, but we have learned how to be together from our founder, Ataturk.
The political problems happen all over the world. As a part of this young generation, I believe we can prove to our elders that we can do something good for our own country and create one heart out of 7 billion people.
In conclusion, we’ve had an amazing in Italy, we have memories that we will never forget, but above all, we have a new place that we can call home even if it is far away from where we live.
Thanks to the Lion’s Group and Leo’s, thanks to everyone who has worked in this camp and thank you my friends for opening your hearts to me, now I can see the world from another window.
Thank you for listening, I am so grateful to have this opportunity. Have a wonderful day. Ciao!