Author: Constanca Soares Seborro

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Maya Angelou 

We believe that this sentence can be a perfect exemple for our past week. We had a lot of challenges to face, as expected, some diverging opinions and a lot of hard work. The start of the week was a bit tough, we had some organization problems between the team mates. However, we worked hard in trying to solve them and with the passing of time and a lot effort we found a way to work on them.. 

In relation with the first sentence of our article, we asked our team how did they feel about our time spent together during the week. One of the most common answers was “challenging”. This is a reflection of some factos external from the team, we had a lot of physical work to be done, a big amount of planning and a big reason to organize meetings where we could discuss about our misunderstandings and goals. People also mentioned often the word “motivating” and at the end of the week, we feel that we have become each others motivators and supporters. In the beggining, our energy was a bit low, but as we started cleaning out our space and seeing the progress of our work, we started to feel some change and feeling more accomplished and fulfilled. Finally, we were working as a team. Results started being visible after the first days. With only three days of very hard physical work, the youth center and its surroundings had a completely new appearance.

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In the beginning of the week, one of the most useful aspects was that we had the chance of listening to conferences or having face to face conversations with professionals in the field of youth work. This helped us a lot in inspiring us and motivated us to take a step forward, having in mind the actual impact of what we are doing in Timișoara. 

One of the main sources of our motivation also came from the support of the community. We witnessed several exemples of kindness from our neighbours. One morning, we still had not received our working tools and this man who was working nearby came to us with three tools and it completely made our day. Also, other neighbours gave us water and food when we were all really needing it, as well as they received us with open arms and a smile on their face.

Work was definetely not the only thing that made us closer this week. One of the most important things for us was having fun during the process. Most of us also described the week as “funny” and “interesting”. We laughed a lot this week, created our own private jokes that got us through our week more smoothly and without loosing our good mood. 

One of the best things this week that really showed results was the fact that we had more frequent meetings. As we all know, communication is key. We worked on our dialogue and on the fact that everyone has a voice to be heard. Our meetings evolved and became less focused on our issues and more targeted to solve them and also to keep our goals in mind while we planed their implementation.

We would also add solidarity as a keyword for the whole process, which we all need to keep in mind and respect while we try to reach our mutual main goal. Something that really helped our team this week was to find the right perspective on why we are here and remember that we are a team working with the same purpose for the community and not ourselves as individuals. That, for us, is the highest expression of solidarity.

After the week was finished, our final moment of reflection was, in general, very positive. We could all agree that our team has had serious development and it’s been reflected on the results of our work. We are discovering, in our time together, new ways of thinking and the main conclusion we made is that diversity is not a problem, it is a solution.

What can we take from this last week? Together, our team came to the conclusion that the secret to the improvement of social connections and relations is just having active dialogue, connected with a lot of patience and tolerance. After these are well consolidated, we can become true friends and not just colleagues.

You ever wondered what a change maker is?

Our main goals include contribution to local society and inclusion of people with fewer opportunities.

Until now, an event like this one was never held in Timișoara.

Thoughtsabout a more active and united community brought about tone hundred people together, from all over the world.

How will this action be implemented?

In five abandoned points of the city, volunteers are working together on reconstructing and rehabilititating them as youth centres.

Nowadays, when young people want to step up, these spaces can offer them the propper tools to do so.

After the centres are operational, they will hold activities like movies, theatre, story telling and many others.

Counting on the support and donations of the local community, we will be able to make some dreams come true.

Tomake this happen, the volunteers will be in Timișoara for a period of fourty days, working hard on achieving their goals.

Inthe end, the youth for youth methoology will allow us to give the buildings back to the community and raise awareness to the importance of volunteering.

Ourfirst week passed by quite quickly and it all went pretty well; our challenges have been overcome through teamwark and collaboration.

Now that the change has started, we are eager to share our experiences and hopes for the future.

For this, we asked our team some key questions about our week.

First, we spoke to Evgenij, also know as Eugene, 27, from Macedonia. We asked him what were his motivations for becoming a volunteer. His answer was the most inspired one. He feels that he needs to have some change in his life, while at the same time improving his skills and creating a new mindset. Eugene has the dream of apllying the skills he wishes to gain, in his own country, with the idea of turning abandoned factories into centres, like skateparks.

Andreia, 19, from Portugal shared with us her first impressions of  Timișoara. She arrived at night to the city, so she actually thought it was a bit empty. However, after our activities, such as a “quest” around the city, she noticed it’s inherent beauty na charm. As for its people, she believes they are very nice, even though there is a language barrier between our volunteers and them.

This week, one of our biggest surprises was entering the building where our youth centre will be, the one our twenty two teammates will renovate. Metanet, from Azerbaijan, age 1, one of our youngest members, shared her first impresion, which is in syntony with the broad views of our team. She was a bit shocked at first, actually, since there are no floors and a loto f damges. So, concern was one of the main feelings. On the other hand, she felt hopeful and excited. The expression she use was “ I believed in our power”, which completely matches our team’s name “Forțatinerilor”, youth power.

For the past few days, our main goal was to connect with the local community of our neighbourhood, we handed out flyers, hung posters, talked to people and finished the week with a small event in our centre, an open day for people to see what we’re doing as well as trying to engage them and incentivate them to donate some materials and volunteer. Pedro, 23 years old, from Brazil, sometimes felt a difficulty in trying to get commitement from locals. However, people were nice and the youngsters from our neighbourhood showed the most interest. He said “We tried our best and we still have many ideas to try to inform as many people as posible”

To sum up our week, we faced our challenges the best way we could, even though there is always room to improve. Our centre might be the smallest, but it certainly is full of challenges for us to face. We are a strong team, full of strong, wonderful people and we are ready to face the weeks to come, never forgeting the the best we can do this, is to keep positive and have fun.

 Do you remember what you did on the 17th of July? We do, it was an important day for us: it was the day we had the chance to engage with local people from Şagului. 

To do that we had to come up with an efficient plan. First, we needed to decide what kind of campaign we wanted: flyers, posters, and stands. Second, we decided we wanted something special for our center, so we designed our flyer. Finally, we divided the team by four areas which allowed us to cover the neıghbourhood better. 

So we’ve talked about the beggining of the week but what about the 20th of July? That was the day we opened up our youth center to the community for the first time. 

Why? Because we wanted the people to see this abandoned old building’s potential and share with us their ideas and needs. 

Each one of us felt proud in different ways and now you will get to see some of our point of views and how we felt at the beggining of this journey. 

Enjoy. 

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Danjela Jakaj 

First time, first day, first challenge 

“Gathered together to fulfill our mission, we were excited about the present and curious about the future. We had team challenges and we delegated duties. Today, we had our first street action, there were many questions in our minds: can we convince them to join our mission? We tried to stay positive. 

In the following days, I distributed some flyers in different areas of the neighborhood with some teammates. We tried our best to convince them to join us, i hope that we have achieved our goal. 

We have to wait and see.” 

Alen Saliu 

Hello, 

“This week has been a real crescendo for me. With each day that passes, it becomes better and things take more of a shape. I’m getting more used to the place and the people, coming closer to some of the guys and enjoying my time every day more. Of course, there have been some challenges, but I’m looking forward to starting the practical fieldwork, and to start bringing change and difference to the community.” 

Marietta Tselepi 

WEEK FIRST IN TIMISOARA 

“The first week started kind of tentatively, many participants from many different countries trying to fit together for the first time in order to create something. The week started with icebreaking games and a lot of music. When our team was formed (team number 2) we were just 23 people trying to get through the training part of the project. We did not know each and we did not care about each other that much. But as the week progressed we managed to start understanding each other better and we started to bond. Through many sessions of decision making, through terrible tiring morning spots and countless hours under the sun, we have started to form a team. After many days of planning, we got to see our youth center. Feelings were mixed it will need a lot of work, lots and lots of hours and maybe a bit of love for the cause for that building to become a beacon of culture. The weird thing is though, that I have no doubt that we will manage since the people of our team are all so amazingly inspirational and actually good and caring people so there is not the slightest fear that we are not going to achieve our goal. As Henry Ford said, “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is a progress and working together is a success”. 

Gözde Şiir 

“Today, we cleaned up the front of the youth house’s garden. It was tiring but it was also really nice to see how we made a visible change in less than an hour. Imagine if everybody did the same for their neighbourhood. 

After that, we decided we wanted to create a flyer for saturday night so I and Maria worked together and designed it. It took some hours. 

After that, we went into the neighborhood and made the stands, sticked the posters and distributed the flyers. Besides that, we also got to see our center for the first time. 

It was in bad shape but it has potential. It is full of little beautiful details. 

Unfortunately, we came across a man near the center who was not that happy about our idea. He said that he doesn’t want change and he would prefer the center as it is now. 

He was not that kind. 

But then I remembered the other locals we had talked to yesterday and how they liked and supported the idea. 

I hope Saturday turns out great. 

Group one kicked off the first week with training. This training was meant to enable the group members to know each other better, as well as to understand each other’s capabilities better. This training consisted of a variety of tasks to equip the group with an awareness of what would be expected of them in the weeks to follow. At the end of the training, each member was required to reflect on the training week, as well as to share their expectations for the future. Many people expressed an appreciation for the training week as it had brought the team closer to each other, and as a result enabled them to build friendships. They also stated that they wish that the same spirit will carry the team through the upcoming weeks.

One of the first tasks given to the group was to give a group name. A consensus was reached on the name: Pangea. Literally, Pangea was said to be the first continent that consisted of all continents (before they separated). The group chose this name as a representation of the coming together of group members from about 14 countries under the same objective of building a Youth Centre.

Pangea was also requested to compile a list of responsibilities in which each member would be responsible for completing a variety of tasks. After a few minutes of disagreement on the responsibility allocation, the group reached an agreement on who would be responsible for what task.

Week two saw Pangea begin community engagement. The main objective of this week was to inform the local community of the Youth Centre that would be renovated in their area and to get the community involved. The community involvement consists of either donation in the form of furniture, paint, books, etc, or volunteering that consists of assisting clean and paint the youth centre.

The group separated into those responsible for physical community engagement, and online community engagement. The physical community engagement was in the form of approaching those in the neighbourhood in order to inform them of the upcoming event on Saturday, 21 July 2019. Online community engagement made usage of online mediums such as Instagram, Facebook and emails. Photos of the group’s progress were posted on social media in order for the community to see the progress of the group. 

Every person that was approached face-to-face was required to leave their contact details – social media, email, contacts – in order for them to be contacted by the online community engagement group.

We are looking for a volunteer to be part of the catering service team in Destelheide-Hanenbos, for 9 months, in the the village Dworp, 25km away from Brussels, Belgium.

If you are:

• Less than 30 years old
• A good communicator
• Responsible
• Prepared to learn Dutch
• Outgoing and social
• Interested in cooking and catering
• Flexible
• Keen on working with youth groups
• Capable of working independently but also as a team member

Then, we have the perfect opportunity for you. With this project, you will have the chance to build your CV, develop your English and Ducth language skills, and learn many other things. Some of your takes during this project will be:

• Getting to know and contributing to the catering process and service, helping to prepare a variety of dishes
• Learn how to follow up the food stock and advice new orders
• Help in the bar during the coffee breaks and meet all the youngsters staying in the youth center
• Learn about all the HCCP rules in a catering service
• Getting insight in the Smiley award for catering services and what you need to do for it
• Organize informal intercultural meeting opportunities for and with the staff and the visitors
• Help with serving the meals and practice all the Dutch culinary terms.

To know all the information on how to apply, where you are going and all the conditions, just read the info pack of the project here.

If you are interested in knowing more or participate in this project, just write to: [email protected]

After not writing in the blog for some time, I started thinking that very hardly I would be able to remember what happened every single week, also considering that it’s not possible that every single week in the past 10 months had something minimally interesting to tell. News flash, it doesn’t. A lot of week are just… weeks.

So I decided to do something different and since I posted some volunteer call’s, I might as well share some tips that were useful for me when coming to EVS.

1. Bring something from home – with this, I don’t mean that I am expecting someone to come empty handed. What I mean is that you should bring something that usually you would not pack, for example, your childhood teddy bear that was staying next to your bed all these years. It might sound weird but at some point, it will feel good to just look at it and know that is there.
2. You will not magically speak the language and that’s ok – during my EVS I sometimes felt a lot of pressure to suddenly wake up and be able to speak Romanian, but more and more I’ve reminded myself that it is not like that. Of course sometimes learning a language needs to be a fast process, but I think most EVS processes don’t require this and, instead, it should be a context where you can actually learn a language in a fun way. Your host organisation will provide you with a course to learn the language, which for my experience and most volunteers I spoke with, will end up as you successfully knowing how to name all the vegetables. Don’t expect to be fluent and don’t pressure yourself. Just enjoy learning new words, making new connections and the fun of the learning process! It’s important to learn the language but it is also important to enjoy it as much as you can.
3. Meet other volunteers, they will make excellent friends – during your EVS there will be no one better to understand you than the other EVS volunteers that are going through the same experience for you. You will have two, or at least one, great moments to know more volunteers and share your experience (On-Arrival and Midterm trainings). Enjoy these moments, as the other EVS volunteers may become not only good friends but also amazing travel buddies.
4. Be friends with as many “locals” as you can – besides the other EVS volunteers, local volunteers, or students, can also be amazing friends. These will be the friends that will show the country in the way that other volunteers or even your organization will not be able to show. You can travel as much as you want, but nothing changes the experience of actually being with people that have lived here all their lives! I know a lot of volunteers that leave their EVS with not one single friend that is actually from the country where they went, as they get too accommodated with their fellow EVS and roommates. My biggest advice is not to miss on the place and, part of the place it’s its people.
5. Don’t be afraid to feel down – this advice comes from my personal experience. I came with very high expectations, that life would be a rush and I would have a lot of things to do, and everything would be fun and games. What happens was that the first time I actually had to stop and be on my own I ended up feeling very lonely, and this ended up sabotaging a part of my experience. So my advice is to take in consideration that there will be sad parts of your EVS. There will be moments when you feel sad, or alone, and that’s also part of the experience. Realising that life continues without you back home is also a hard feeling sometimes, but by embracing we learn how to appreciate the entire experience for itself, with all goods and bads.

Volunteering abroad is a huge rollercoaster, that teaches you A LOT about other and even more about yourself. It’s an experience that I recommend to everyone, as in the end of the day, everybody wins 🙂

We are looking for a volunteer to join the ESC project “Heritage Forever”, starting from March 2019, for 7 months, in the Mansion Rakican in Slovenia.

If you are:

• Less than 30 years old
• Speaking English, at least to an intermediate level
• Interested in protecting and preserving cultural heritage
• Interested in gaining new knowledge and practical experience and develop competences in the field, which will significantly contribute to personal fulfilment, inclusion, adaptability, innovation and ultimately to the creation of advantages in the labour market and employability
• Captivated to work among highly qualified, diverse and young team that is highly motivated to create new quality content that is attractive especially to young people

Then, we have the perfect opportunity for you. With this project, you will have the chance to build your CV, develop your English language skills, increase your intercultural awareness, as well as improve your competences in protecting and preserving of cultural heritage with the help of ICT technology, among others.

If you are interested in knowing more or participate in this project, just write to us at [email protected]

We are looking for a volunteer to join the EVS project “Active Keswick”, starting from January 2019, for 6 months, in the heart of the beautiful town of Keswick, the Lake District.

If you are:

• Less than 30 years old
• Speaking English, at least to an intermediate level
• An active person, interested in sports and active lifestyle
• Interested in, or willing to learn about, rugby
• Captivated to develop your skills in sports education and youth leadership through sports as well as community action

Then, we have the perfect opportunity for you. With this project, you will have the chance to build your CV, develop your English language skills, increase your intercultural awareness, as well as improve your competences in sports coaching, with a possibility to include recognised qualifications.

All your expenses will be covered by the Erasmus+ programme. You will be offered accommodation together with the other volunteers, within easy reach of the town centre. Travel expenses are also covered, as well as a monthly allowance that covers food and pocket money. 

For more informations just send us an email, and to apply send us your CV and motivation letter to [email protected].

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The OLS platform, offered by the Erasmus+ program, is a tool to use when learning a language. The website is aimed at any person engaging in a mobility, that can be academic, EVS, professional, etc.

In order to use the platform, you shall receive an invitation via email, sent by your coordinator, that will forward you through a link to a language assessment test. After filling this assessment, that takes about 40 minutes, the results are sent both to you and the coordinator of the mobility. The results of the test use the CEFR scale.

After this assessment, we will be sent and receive another invitation from the coordinator, this time to participate in the language course. By using the link provided in this email, you will answer a kind of objectives questionnaire. This questionnaire is essential to define your learning path, asking you the motives to take this course and your objectives with it, asking some other questions like which other languages you speak.

Finalized the creation of the learning path, you are redirected to your dashboard, where you can find all the information about your progress, being:

1. Your level, based on the results of your language assessment, including a short explanation to it and the date you completed the test
2. The “My statistics” section, where you can see how much time was spent using the platform in the current month, and in total, since the beginning of your course
3. And finally, “My learning path”, where you can choose which lessons to take, based on topic or type.

Your original learning path, made before the start of the course, can be changed at any point, in order to erase or add objectives.

All progress is automatically saved, therefore, you can exit the platform whenever you want, to later on restart from the point you left.

 

 

The recently released EU programme, the European Solidarity Corps, comes to support different types of projects, aimed at young people.

Among these, there is the Solidarity Projects, set up and carried out by groups of at least 5 young people, registered in the European Solidarity Corps. The aim is to address key challenges found in their communities while presenting a clear European added value.

These projects can last between 2 to 12 months and must take place in the country where the project participants reside.

With this programme, young people are given the chance to express solidarity by taking responsibility and committing themselves to bring positive change in their local community.

How?

Young people who want to form a group to run a solidarity project should register in the European Solidarity Corps Portal. There is no upper limitation on the number of participants, only a minimum of 5.

The decision on the working methods and how the project will be managed, is taken autonomosly by the group and one of the participants will assume a role of legal representative who will submit the application, unless an organisation applies on behalf of the group.

For what?

A solidarity project should be directly linked to the local community where the young participants live in, responding to the issues and challenges around them. Nevertheless, some of the projects can also tackle regional or even national issues.

Together with addressing the local challenges, a solidarity project should also clearly demonstrate an European added value by addressing priorities identified at European level. A solidarity project should reflect a common concern for issues within the European society, such as for example: integrating third-country nationals, climate change or democratic participation.