I am Aisha Salum. I am 19 years old. I am from Cape Town, South Africa, in a sole suburb called Delft. I am one of the learners who were part of the climate change program.

So I got lots of different advices about Germany. Some were saying that they didn't like Germany and some were just giving me positive vibes about Germany. But personally, I loved Germany very much. And being in South Africa, I’d living here all my life, but I always felt something was missing. And it's weird because my life is in South Africa, but I always just felt that missing part. And being in Germany, it's like I felt at home, even though I wasn't with my family. I felt so at home. I felt like I was home. And the part that was missing all these years was not missing. So I loved it in Germany.

The program was mainly about the importance of climate change. And before I didn't really take climate change seriously. I didn't even know what climate change was if I have to be honest. To me, it was just „whatever?!“, you know. Until I accord to this program, and I learned more about climate change, and I saw the effects that it has in our daily lives. And these are things that many people don't realize, you know. So I just hope that more people can be aware of climate change and make the world a different place. Because personally, I contributed a lot to climate change because it wasn't still a matter to me.
But after I learned more, I do try my best and my family to change a few things we did, definitely now.

Climate change affects my personal life, very bad, because sometimes we do get, like, a massive heat wave in Cape Town, so it gets really bad. And also, there are days when it's just, like, really windy. And there are some people that have no privileges of living in a house, so they live in shacks. And climate change affects their life very bad, especially if the weather is not too good. So definitely there is a negative side of climate change.

After this whole experience, I definitely do try to change a few things in my daily live. So my dad and myself, we actually started our own permaculture garden in the back of our yard. And like I said at the beginning of this recording, I didn't care about climate change. I didn't even know what it was. And now it's actually a big part of me, and not just me, but my whole family, because every day, my dad's like, you know, he sits his time, like two hours in the garden. And when he goes, he is like, „Aisha, it’s time, let's go.“ And we work in the garden. So we do try to change the way we saw, like climate change at first, complete now, so definitely.

My view on the world definitely changed after coming from Germany. I always wanted to travel the world, and I got that opportunity to go to Germany. And I told myself, you know, I wanna live here. But I know, of course, I can't just go live there. I have to work hard and to earn it myself. So when I came back, I told myself, I'm gonna push, and I'm definitely gonna make my parents proud and I’m gonna make myself proud also. So that one day, you know, I can live in Germany, I can travel the world, and I can do what makes me happy. So after coming back, it definitely did put a positive impact on my life.