Asturias, the most stimulating Spanish region you've never heard of
In the loose federation of regions that is Spain, Asturias vies for honors in several categories including as possibly the least known, beyond Spain, of Spanish regions.
“Asturias, isn’t that somewhere in northern Spain?” On most foreign folks' mental map, Spain's best kept secret is located somewhere between a world-famous contemporary art museum in Bilbao and, to the west, the endpoint of Saint James’ legendary trek. Locals don’t seem bothered, confident in a rich and remembered past as basis for the many endeavors of an active contemporary society. And likely in their free time too engaged with the lovely cultural and geographic surroundings to notice.
A few years ago, IFE set up a Spanish-language Field Study and Internship program in Asturias' main city, and Atlantic port, of Gijón, the focal point of an urban conglomerate of some 600,000 inhabitants, and the highly regarded University of Oviedo. Well-educated and well-traveled, Asturians are at home in Spain and the world, and at home full-stop. Local smiles and welcoming words are common, tourist English is not; what better spot for a cross-cultural, language-based internship program? IFE Asturias has been able to draw on the local bonhomie to knit a program-community including students, host families, teachers, and other friends of IFE.
Fewer than four dozen students later, the variety of student engagement nonetheless matches that of the Asturian community itself. IFE's network of host organizations reads like the Yellow Pages: a financial research group studying Asturian micro-economics and investment needs, the Museum of the History of the Asturian People, a foundation providing social services to women and families, a cultural events agency, Dupont Asturias, an NGO serving immigrant communities, a downtown bookstore and literary venue, the Gijón International Film Festival, media agency, graphic design firm, Caritas International, the Chamber of Commerce, cultural centers, the Botanical Gardens, … And the University of Oviedo has been quick to host IFE STEM students in research labs in the Physics Faculty, Chemistry Department, in functional biology, neuroscience and other areas.
Like the local residents with and among whom they live, IFE students get up to lots of interesting things. Making videos to publicize a film festival, learning Asturian for work with a communications agency committed to this language, helping families and at-risk youth learn life skills, presenting one's research to the team of the University of Oviedo's Atomic Physics Department, or reviewing concerts for the Asturias daily newspaper. Most of all, joining their neighbors in celebrating life here, happily hemmed in between the mountains and the sea.