Blog: Prepping for the Youth Exchange

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Catherine (left) and other representatives at the Youth Exchange 2025 prep meeting

Catherine, our Programme Lead for Children & Families, tells us about heading to the Netherlands a few weekends ago to prep for the upcoming Erasmus+ Youth Exchange for young adults who stammer in July.

The province of Utrecht in the Netherlands is home to many things. It has the Dom Tower (the tallest tower in the Netherlands), Kasteel de Haar (the biggest castle in the Netherlands) and the Museum Speelkok (the only self-playing musical instruments museum in the Netherlands!). 

This May, it also hosted this year's prep meeting for the Erasmus+ Youth Exchange for young adults who stammer, which takes place this July.

The Youth Exchange, hosted by Stamily, is an annual event where young adults who stammer from across Europe meet up for nine days of outdoor activities, workshops, meditations, games and more. It's a chance for them to meet others who stammer and develop their involvement in the stammering community. Thanks to a legacy donation left to us by Owen Simon, STAMMA is able to fund young adults from the UK to attend (applications closed earlier this year).

• Read about last year’s Youth Exchange from UK attendees Liv, Benita and Liss & Marilena

The prep meeting is the first time representatives from all seven countries taking part come together in person to design the programme for the upcoming event, as well as all the other logistics which will keep it safe and fun. 

During the weekend, we heard from young adults who’ll be attending in July about what they would like to see during the week, and then create workshops based on their ideas. This year the theme is 'Natural Voice', so we want to have a programme that looks both at how people use their voices, as well as other ways people might express themselves such as through art, photography, drama and dance. Hopefully it should be a fun week! 

Thankfully, the weekend wasn't all work and no play. By coincidence, we happened to be there on the same weekend that the Eurovision Song Contest was on, so of course we had to watch it. Only one person managed to correctly guess the winning entry, though! At the glamping site we were staying at there was a beautiful lake for canoeing, a hedge maze, petting zoo and a barefoot walk complete with obstacle course. It was tough, but we managed to find a few things to entertain ourselves with in the evenings.

Now we are all back home the real work begins, finalising workshop details as well as each country's 'national evening' — each night during the Exchange, attendees and representatives from each country will in turn get to show off something they love about their nation and bring food and drink for everyone to try. I've been chatting with our UK team this week and we've got a few ideas of what we're going to do for our evening and the foods we could bring.

I can't wait to be back in the Netherlands in July with the rest of team UK for the Youth Exchange. Hopefully the weather will be just as nice!

Read Catherine's reflections on last year's Youth Exchange, where the theme was 'Outside the Mask'.