The Athens Olympic Youth Camp was an event that chose a girl and a boy from every Olympic nation and an extra person from each European nation for the EYES project.

I was the lucky boy chosen to go to Athens along with Davina Mangion and Aaron Podesta. At the camp we were put together along with all the other participants and were given a once in a life time opportunity to socialise and create new friendships with people from all over the world.

We were around 300 youths and there were about 100 volunteers caring for us, and so there was no lack of people to make friends with.

The Greeks ran the camp, but they also had a lot of help from foreign volunteers that enjoyed working with youths.

We had a number of activities and most of them were directed towards the building of new friendships and giving us a feeling of the Olympic spirit. We were also asked to participate in a number of educational workshops that promoted the fantastic voluntary work of UNICEF.

This camp showed me how diverse the people of this world really are and gave me an idea of how easy it is to make friends.

At this camp we were like different coloured Smarties collected in a box. Just to give an idea of the diversity of nations, the room-mates that were in my dormitory were from Finland, Canada, China, Chile, Senegal, Micronesia and Pakistan. With the time we spent there, we chose the friends we wanted to remain in contact with.

From getting there and knowing only the two partners I went up with, I came back with a number of new good friends that I still keep in contact with, one year after the event.

Finally I’d like to thank the MOC for having given me this fantastic opportunity of meeting all these people.