Once upon a time, there was a very cool group of guys who created Erasmus Life Porto to provide free activities to the students, or in minimum as cheap as no profit at all happening for anyone, but with a lot of fun included to everyone :) therefore the results started to happen and here are the results:

Lets imagine an interesting topic as: Erasmus students in Porto....thats a topic which thousands of people could add information, or just a comment, or even a simple critic to whatever was their experience in Porto.
Porto was always a city with a lot of Erasmus Students, and together with that it brought the biggest disappointement in our city with consequences that still keep shaking and shaping the way Erasmus students live Porto.

To be a city with a lot of Erasmus students zipping around every year, brought us "a Monster Association of a certain group of Kids" that should take care of the Erasmus Students and instead of that, just creates polemic after polemic. An association of Kids that sells thousands of services every year, and nobody ever saw a receipt from it.....an association of kids who organizes parties with clubs every week, with hundreds of people paying for what they drink and nobody ever saw a receipt of the comissions they deal with the clubs ( obviously they can say that they dont take any comission or as many times that they only earned 100 euros on a party with more then 500 students in it, but that would just fall into the ridiculous excuses they usually give to everyone)... an association which should represent our ideals of democracy and elects the same president for years and years in a row.....an association who should help the city to integrate with these students, and only make partnerships with who gives more money or benefits to the association, instead of more benefits to the students....an association who creates conflicts with every other association or company who cooperates or works for Erasmus Students.....an Association who didnt have an accountability in order 10 years ago.....an association that gives so much profit that who belongs to the board, can go out of there and have the luxury to create their own company for International Students ( yes, do you think that people have short memory? and that we dont keep the track on these guys? we do... we dont forget and we dont forgive what they have been doing to this city.

An Association, gets public money to invest and provide services or products to a certain group of people, and this public money comes from the pocket of who works every day and pays taxes. Therefore that money is ours, and we do want to see it invested on a good and non corrupted way. We do like to see their financial balance being public every year. We do like to see what those kids are doing with the money that comes from everyone who pay their taxes.  We like to know who is there every year playing with it.

But we never saw any announcement for a public presentation of financial balances, or official presentation of a new board, or even an official Election, where we can go and see who can vote or how do they vote. 

Most of all: how are they elected? is it democratic if only 3 or 4 guys can elect a board of 3 or 4 people on an association that has around 20 members?? Does it make sense that only these 3 or 4 guys can elect the new members who can be elected in the future?  Then we ask if each president is so good that is elected 3 or more times in a row. How does their lifestyle gets better then all the other members and students in the city?


It is time to make the right questions and get the right answers to start to balance what is fair and unfair in Porto.
No more silence to corruption, no more silence to unfairness. We all pay it, and we should all be able to know whats going on there.

The services in Porto are not being integrated with the international students. Only big corporations and big companies who give big benefits to this Association are getting direct access to the International Students in Porto.

Is this really what we want to show to them when they visit Porto?
Is this what they want to get to know from our city?
Is it right that we allow these kids to keep feeding conflicts, and destroying services and businesses of who is legally stablished in Porto?

They are now trying to change the Erasmus Meeting points, and places where all the Erasmus Students were safe. They dont really care about safety, or if a place is better for the students or not......who gives them more comissions and profits it is their best friend.....on what concerns the international students, for them, you are JUST  A NUMBER.


This text is based on fictional characters and fictional institutions. Any similarity with real people or real institutions and Associations, is just a big coincidence. These stories and conspiracies are to Monstruous to be real in Porto.



Author:
André Gentil-Homem

If you have a good Erasmus Horror or Erasmus Conspiracy story to share with us, please send it by email to : m2students.porto@gmail.com and we will share the best ones every week at the Erasmus Facebook group.