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    HomeNewsBRIDGE 2026: three placements, one alliance, three margins of Europe

    BRIDGE 2026: three placements, one alliance, three margins of Europe

    51 students experienced what EMERGE’s mission of “empowering the margins of Europe” can look like in practice

    This summer, the EMERGE European University Alliance sent 38 students from 8 of its 9 partner universities into three very different BRIDGE placements — joined by 13 students from Eastern Michigan University (USA). 51 students in total, working in international teams rather than as individual interns, in three countries, over the same few weeks. 

    •  Zvolen, Slovakia. A student team designed and delivered a land-art intervention in Lanice Park — not a project about the community, but one built inside it in cooperation with Association Slatinka.  The work closed with a human chain of more than 60 local residents around thepark, and four new benches, built by students, that now belong to the town long after the team went home. 

     

    • Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. Another team, working side by side with 13 Eastern Michigan University students under the guidance of Zuzana Tomas, ran an English Summer Camp for 58 children — built around civic values, communication and intercultural learning, not just vocabulary. More than 30 people came to the children's final presentation.  None of it would have happened without community partners: the Centre for Community Organising (CKO) and Centrum dobrovoľníctva, n. o. 

     

    •  Barretstown, Ireland. At Barretstown Castle, students took on the role of "Cara" — the Irish word for friend — inside a medically endorsed therapeutic camp for children and teenagers living with serious illness. They worked alongside trained staff, returning volunteers and theCamp Management Team, helping campers feel safe, included, and — if only for a few days — like kids again. 

    Three sites, three different margins named in EMERGE's own mission: a public space reclaimed, a community's civic voice strengthened in two languages, and young patients supported through friendship and play. None of it was students completing tasks and moving on. Eachplacement asked for weeks of preparation, real responsibility inside someone else's team, and — as more than one student put it — came back changed for it. 

    That's what "empowering the margins of Europe" looks like in practice. Not a slogan on a website. 38 EMERGE students. Two countries. One summer. 

    Thank you to every BRIDGE student, to Eastern Michigan University, and to every community partner and host organisation who opened their doors this June and July.