Report by young People (Daniel, Aaron, Stephen, Chris, Sarah, Kayleigh, Hannah, Rhea, Darryl) In November 2006 we were asked by Duncan Elliott at the Xcel Project and Janette Jackson at The Langholm Initiative for volunteers to go on a trip to South West Finland. This was a follow on from a visit in October by Finnish adults and young people to Annandale & Eskdale. We received half the funding for the trip from Leader+ Dumfries & Galloway and we had to raise a lot of the rest ourselves. We had lots of fundraising activities like a stall at the Christmas Lights switch on day, Christmas quiz sheets, raffles, a football tournament and sponsored activities.  Some of us did things like sponsored silences and cycle rides, one of us had a sponsored slim and Stephen and Chris had their legs waxed!  It was all great fun and made us look forward to the trip even more.  We raised around £600 in a couple of months! We had lots of meetings with Duncan on the run up to the trip to prepare us for it.  We also had to do a presentation in Finland on what it is like for young people living here in Annandale & Eskdale so we had to get that ready too. When the day came we all met early to get the minibus to Liverpool Airport.  Some of us hadn’t been in an aeroplane before so it was quite exciting and we all couldn’t wait to get there.  We’d been told it was going to be very cold and snowy! When we arrived at Tampere in Finland after a 3 hour flight we got of the plane and the coldness hit you straight away – it was -20 degrees.  We were taken to the centre we were going to be staying at which was about 2 hours away.  Everywhere was covered in thick snow but the buses and cars are used to it there. We settled in at the centre which was very warm and cosy inside.  Over the next few days we met lots of young Finnish people – some of the ones who had came to Scotland in October and lots of new ones.  We all got on really well and they could speak quite good English.  Some of them stayed at the centre with us.

We went on lots of trips while we were there – we went shopping in Pori, went cross country ski-ing and were invited into someone’s home for cakes and coffee.  We went for a walk in the woods and had a fire in a tipee and cooked sausages and had hot berry juice.  We also visited some Leader projects like a youth group and a volunteer fire station. We learned that recycling is taken very seriously in Finland. Refunds are even given in supermarkets for returning of empty bottles. One of the best bits of the trip was when we went to a secondary school.  We went to classes with the Finnish pupils and did some work together and they asked us questions and we asked them.  At break time we went out into the playground and Duncan threw a snowball and got told off!  We had our lunch at the school which was very healthy.  They have to have the lunch given at the school – there is only one choice but it was okay.  In the afternoon we had to give a presentation to the primary school – this was terrifying as we were up on the stage and all the little kids were sat on the floor looking at us.  We did our best but we don’t think they understood that much!  After that we were challenged to a game like ice hockey on the school pitch.  All the Finnish kids were supporting us and we won! In the evenings we had a meal at the centre which was usually alright and then we’d hang about with our friends and go for a sauna.  The sauna was next to the lake and g