A beauty apprentice from Pembroke Dock will be swapping the salon where she is employed to experience working in Cyprus for two weeks this summer.

Aimee Asparassa from Total Image Beauty Salon, has been selected for an exciting two-week work experience placement in Paphos, from May 31.

The visit has been arranged by Bridgend-based ISA Training, the largest independent hair and beauty training provider in Wales, in partnership with Discovery Training in Cyprus.

The two training providers signed a pioneering international partnership last year to deliver hairdressing and beauty qualifications in Cyprus. ISA Training provides verification and support for City & Guilds apprenticeships in hairdressing and beauty delivered by Discovery Training's three training centres.

Aimee will join a group of 10 apprentices and two staff on the trip to Paphos, where she will spend two weeks working in a salon. As the owner and customers speak Greek, the apprentices are now learning the language to help them settle in quickly.

The Cyprus project follows the success of a pioneering two-week work experience visit to Tarragona in Spain by 10 ISA Training learners last year. Mobility project funding has been secured from the Leonardo Programme, part of the European Commission's Lifelong Learning Programme.

The project aims to enhance the learning experience of apprentices, increase their confidence and broaden their career horizons. The apprentices and assessors have begun Greek lessons to help them fit in quickly with the salons where they will be working.

"I think it will be a unique experience to see how others work and the techniques they use in Cyprus," said Aimee, who began her apprenticeship last summer. "I am looking forward to gaining more knowledge and experience and also meeting new people."

ISA Training's managing director Berni Tyler thanked the owners of all the salons in Wales and Gloucestershire for agreeing to release their apprentices for two weeks in June.

"We had such a high calibre of applicants that we could easily have selected 25 for the Cyprus visit," she said. "Because the learners will be working in salons that are typically Greek, they are now learning the language to that they can settle in quickly."

Last year's pioneering visit to Tarragona was the culmination of four years' work by ISA Training's chair Shirley Davis-Fox and her team. The Cyprus visit will mark the completion of the next phase of ISA Training's Oyster Project, which is based on the saying 'The world is your oyster'.

Next in the pipeline is a Health and Beauty Europe project, again supported by the Leonardo Programme, later this year. The project which will involve short exchanges of four health and beauty apprentices and three staff with colleges in Spain, Poland and Turkey.

Institut Cal Lipolis in Tarragona wrote the bid for the exchange project and invited ISA Training to be partners. Links between the two organisations were first established in 2012 when ISA Training first began organising the work experience placement.

"We now live in a global age and we need to provide exciting learning opportunities for our work-based learners," said Mrs Davis-Fox, a member of the Hairdressing Council. "We have much to learn from other countries and they can also learn from us.

"We want to enhance the learning experience and inspire our learners to realise that hairdressing and beauty therapy are professions that can grant them a passport to travel the world."