“Learning Patience can be a difficult experience, but once conquered, you will find life easier” – Katherine Pulsifer
As a person, I was never really involved with Erasmus+ projects — I always had a preference towards projects and conferences that were made by universities and other organizations.
So, when I was accepted after 4 months of waiting in the project Set the Tempo, I was quite happy to change my pace of daily working. I was so glad to change my demanding and full schedule to a more relaxed one. Volunteering has always helped me feel better and relax as I can see the results of my work almost immediately.
But sadly, I was wrong. I was happy to see again some people that I already knew. I was eager to meet them and to start working in order to bring forth a positive change. But looking back to this year, the change was minimal.
Waiting for a great start
In the first month of the project, we were basically waiting for the other 7 volunteers to arrive so we can start to work. This resulted in the fact that our work was almost nonexistent and we were almost forgotten. The second month of the project brought forth the first quarantine, by which we were forced to stay inside with strangers for 14 days.
After that, the work started tentatively. It became apparent the difficulty that people that actually care to bring forth a change and help, have to deal with many parasites. Parasites that, as I observed, are sucking the good work that the youth sector could do in the communities. (Often, when I think of those people, I think of leeches. My mind goes back to one of my favorite series of books “A Series of Unfortunate Events”. In the 3rd book, the aunt of the poor orphans is eaten by cannibal leeches.) There are many other work sectors that are getting money from different grants or, in our case, from the European Union. So yes, the people that want to get money doing almost nothing are leeches, in my humble opinion.
Creating connections
During the first few months, I had the chance though to cooperate with some really nice people that motivated me. Although I don’t like to use the word “friendship” I started feeling very nice and happy working with them. I also want to point out that I did not have a partner. We should have been working with partners, but mine did not arrive till November. Talking about a project that started in March, this aspect did not look that good for me. My work was more solitary than anything, but in the whole duration of the project, I did not feel like I was a part of a team.
Work at its finest
Summer came and we were finally able to go out and start working in the youth centers. Of course, you can understand the state of them after being closed for a year (Spoiler Alert: it was not good). Everything needed to be repainted, the mold needed to be cleaned, the windows needed fixing, the floor as well, nothing was ready and everything was pretty bad. Little by little I started working on that. The help I received from the organization was very limited. Thank God, I had a really nice volunteer helping me with some things. As such the project progressed, and through many hours of work, I managed to have the center ready. I had the first event done before all the other youth centers and I was very proud of it.
Holiday
Then I went back home to Greece for holidays. Honestly, the best time I spent on the project was the holiday that I took back home. But then I went back and work continued to be difficult for only one person. From August till October the work continued happening although my motivation was almost nonexistent. At this point, we had many arguments with the organization, and many things suddenly appeared for us to do that we had no knowledge of. The only thing that I was actually enjoying was my work with the volunteers and the neighbourhood that I was working in. I met some very nice people there that really made me happy that I came in the project.
Losing motivation
But in the first days of October we were again forbidden to do events in the youth centers. So everything had to be done online and the work became boring and it lost all meaning for me. Of course, at that time everyone was tired of doing online school and online university. I saw from my volunteers firstly, that they did not want to participate in these kinds of events, so I decided to not force anyone. I just did the events with very few people.
In the first days of November my partner also came, after almost 9 months of waiting. He was a very nice boy and we started to work. And then the second and third quarantine came, where I had to stay in the house for a whole month. With that, my motivation died and went to Hades to the underground world and it is still there, keeping Hades company.
Honestly, I do not have anything more to say about the last few months of the project, only that I miss working with the people of the community. It was hard to admit that online events do not work and my soul is being sucked out because of them.
Thoughts for the future
Right now, I am waiting for the project to finish so I can continue my life like before. Certainly, I gained some friends and a lot of patience. I think I really saw the ugly side of the youth sector and what it contains. Now, after this experience, I am much more certain that whatever I start has to do with community work. I will try to build a good foundation with people that really care about their communities. I am anxious to see the results that this project will have in the continuation of my life. Hopefully, I will collaborate with some of the people that I met. I am really hopeful for these collaborations and for the future.