People asked me “Why Slovenia?”, when I told them I will be leaving abroad to do my internship placement in the Spring 2026. I must confess I was not educated with too much knowledge about Slovenia in advance. For me, applying for an internship placement at Slovenia, was highly motivated through the organization Zavod Moja mavrica and the work they do in the capital area in Ljubljana. I was impressed by a variety of topics they work with including mental and physical health, LGBTQ+ rights, safer spaces, feminist social work and sustainability. For me, as an adult student changing careers, these themes were important and I definitely wanted to see what this kind of NGO work in Slovenia entails. 

During the internship placement I exchanged knowledge, practices and working methods with the international trainee colleagues and the Moja mavrica organization in the topics of LGBTQ+, neurodiversity, movement, mental health, ecological factors and relationships. As interns we planned and executed different workshops and discussion groups in the city library and local youth center. While implementing these workshops, we gained experience in planning and implementing a structured and moderated discussion sessions and workshops and implementing methods and topics of our choice. Topics of our work were for example learning the manifestations of dating violence, learning skills how to improve our mental health, interculture and identity and body and self-perception. We were also offered the opportunity to participate in online lectures by partner organizations and external actors from different human and citizen rights such as the right of association, freedom of expression and the prohibition of discrimination. 

Overall during the internship we had a good opportunity to practise our professional working skills, learn new practises and implement non-formal education in our work tasks. As part of the internship, we also had the opportunity to implement an Erasmus+ youth exchange from start to finish, which took place between 2nd of March to 6th of March 2026. This youth exchange gave us the opportunity to implement the project’s workshops, scheduling, supporting materials, and post-evaluation reports and documentation. I can warmly recommend the organization as an internship for social work students who want to work with the above-mentioned themes and gain diverse work experience in the field of non-governmental organizations.