Author: Katsiaryna Kryvaltsevich

In summer ’19 I got involved in a great adventure. I was among a hundred volunteers from different parts around the world who came to Timisoara with only one purpose. We built 5 youth centres in 5 neighbourhoods of the city, in order to help the local community of young people. To be honest, I was not very familiar with volunteering programmes in Europe and just by a lucky sequence of events, I discovered for myself a new world. We worked hard that summer and left with the feeling of fulfilment, satisfaction and hope that these spaces will become centres of culture, creativity and innovation in this small, but beautiful and historically important Romanian city. 

The Change

When FITT opened the call, I was really excited to come back and actually be the one to see The Change in the community. I was happy to be accepted and could not wait to start working in my Centrul de Tineret Aradului. I imagined the upcoming year to be full of great concerts, cozy gatherings, and many other kinds of events. I imagined a lot of things, but the reality turned out to be in its own way. 

Right after signing the volunteering agreements, the global pandemic took over and put us in lockdown for two months. It was a great time for distant learning and self-development, as well as for planning the activities of the project. 

However, it was hard to plan anything because the situation was so unclear and the air was literally filled with fears and anxiety. 

Cleaning and renovation

In May, Romania entered the state of alert and we were allowed to finally go out and start working in the youth centre. Complete abandonment of the building resulted in so much dirt, dust, and destruction, that me and my Armenian partner Arus, needed about two months to make the youth centre look decent.  

Besides all the cleaning/renovating, me and my working partner were trying to spread awareness of our project, in order to get the acknowledgement and receive help from the locals. We recruited many local volunteers among teenagers and students in the community. We tried to involve them in the organisation of the youth centre as much as possible, but most of them disappeared, due to both the pandemic and their personal reasons. Generally speaking, the local community was not very active and receptive towards the youth centre. 

Emilia and Alice

However, two local girls, Emilia and Alice, have really put their hearts into the project. Thanks to them, I feel that my presence in Timisoara had meaning and purpose. These girls initiated two amazing projects (Art Club and Eco Club) on the base of the Aradului youth centre. They brought life into the youth centre and invited their friends. This way we managed to get at least some trust in the neighbourhood. Moreover, these two girls will take care of the youth centre after our projects ends. 

It is good to leave something important and close to your heart with a complete assurance that all these efforts will not be abandoned and forgotten. 

Even though many kinds of socialization were restricted, me and my working partner managed to get to know many people and get involved in different projects with a number of local NGOs and private companies. We have managed to get the awareness of people in the neighbourhood and had a lot of help from them in organizing the activities. Later, when all events in physical space got forbidden again, they helped us create online projects, which had relatively low participation, but otherwise, went awesome. 

Final thoughts

To be honest, I have been thinking a lot about the project and the purpose of it. We spent most of the time at home, actively coming to the youth centre only in summer. 

Did we accomplish our mission, which is “to set the tempo” for cultural life in the neighborhoods? Is it possible to do so when human connection is forbidden?  

I do not have a clear answer to this question even now. What I know for sure, is that we did make a change. Maybe not in the neighborhoods, but in the people, who were helping us and participating in our activities. When I hear words of gratitude and appreciation (and that did happen quite a few times), my heart is filled with meaning and purpose. 

After all, despite all challenges and disappointments, I know that the decision to come here was actually the best possible option. I feel grateful for myself and all people around me for this experience. Now it is time to move on and explore life. However, volunteering will always have its special place in my mind and heart. 

Volunteering gives a lot of learning opportunities.

While being a volunteer in a foreign country, you learn (and practice) new languages. International environment can give you a great chance to improve your English skills of any level. Work with local community requires some knowledge of Romanian, which I have been trying to learn since the day I arrived in the country. However, independent learning is not enough and you can get provided with the language course, taught by professionals. Previous week we even had our very first classes. Moreover, constantly being around my Armenian teammate Arus enriched my everyday vocabulary with some words in Armenian.

Another thing you can learn during the volunteering period is practical skills. Here we work a lot on marketing and promotion, therefore enhancing our digital skills in different programs for creating visual content. Besides, we learned how to work with some heavy tools, in order to fix our youth center.

Volunteering is also full of flexibility and creativity. You can learn how to manage your time, how to create a schedule and adjust it in a few day, how to make a plan for your activities and adapt because something does not go according to the plan. You can learn how to dance, how to take pictures and videos, how to write blogs and many other things. Furthermore, you can learn how to teach others and how to learn while you are teaching.

Volunteering also means dealing with different kids of people. Everyone has their own desires, wishes, lifestyle, character and perception of the reality. You will need patience, empathy, solidarity, great investment of time and efforts, in order to achieve communication goals you set for yourself.

Volunteering gives an opportunity to learn how to deal with your own feelings and expectations. Sometimes you feel great and successful, sometimes you go through the wave of disappointment. You learn how to live with it and how to move on, trying to pursue important things.

Volunteering is experience.

Katsia

This week was almost completely dedicated to the workshop on storytelling, which was implemented online (unfortunately). This workshop is a part of the big European project “Stories behind city”, where participants from Novi Sad, Rijeka and Timisoara tell their personal stories about their cities via digital media tools.

The workshop was facilitated by experts in digital storytelling: Italian NGO Melting Pro and StoryCenter, which is based in Berkeley, USA. The outcome of 5 sessions we had was a video, where we tell our stories with support of visual and audio materials. I was really amazed by the final results from each member of our team.

This whole experience was interesting me, even though I cannot say that I learned something new for myself. However, it was an exciting challenge to go through the whole process and create a story that could be actually used in our work here. Hope you will enjoy it.

Katsia

Yaaay, good news!
We almost completed the process of making our youth center shine. There are just some minor steps to finish it, like taking care of the garden and fixing the lights there.

While the virus is still somewhere around, we are preparing some games and informational materials for the followers of our page on Facebook. Besides, we are planning a lot of interesting activities in our youth center, which will be implemented as soon as the regulations will allow that.

We have been working a lot and I personally cannot wait to meet young people in our neighborhood, who are ready to get, share and exchange experience. We keep the doors open for everyone passing by, and hope that soon we will enjoy summertime with the local community in a fun and productive way (while respecting safety measures, of course).

Follow the updates!

Katsia

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It is 10 in the morning. My teammate Arus takes the key out of the padlock on the door and opens the youth center in Aradului. I open the door on the other side, as wide as possible. We come in and throw our backpacks on the sofa, which is close to the entrance. We sit down and discuss our work plan for today. After that, Arus is going to get tools for today’s work and puts the gloves on. Meanwhile, I am turning on the huge speaker and connecting my phone to it. After it is connected, I am looking for the playlist on Spotify, which I made for parties long time ago. The music is filling the room fast and gets both of us into the mood for work. Dancing along with the rhythm of the song, we are starting to work.

Today we have decided to fix the way the windows look. At first, we get some things necessary for cleaning to remove layers of dust and pieces of old paint. Full of energy, we are working while singing and dancing. The area around stops being quite and empty. We notice that people are passing by and looking in the direction of our center with a lot of curiosity. It is not a surprise, they have been probably taking the same road often and nothing was happening around here for more than half a year. It is absolutely clear that loud music and open doors attract most of the attention.

Most of the people nearby randomly throw a glance and keep going. Meanwhile, Arus is taking a can of paint and moving a small ladder closer to the window. I am coming to help her keep the balance. A song, which was popular in our childhood, starts to play. We are singing together, and I am trying not to forget about the ladder I am holding.

We see a few kids running in front of the center and trying to find out what is inside. The bravest ones are coming inside and fighting the invisible monsters with their toy weapons. We are looking at them and laughing, while a mother of one of them is shouting “Davide, haide!”

I have decided to go and tell mothers about our project. Fortunately, one of them speaks English and expresses her interest in our activities. I am telling her about our plans for the center and invite her to follow our page on Facebook (which she did!).

During the day other people come in and ask what is going on. Some of them even offer their help. Some say that they will visit us, when they hear loud music all around the street again. This kind of meetings give us even more energy and motivation than the music we are listening to.

We are making just the first steps in changing the everyday tempo of the place. The whole story is yet to come. Aradului, get ready!

Katsia

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Hello everyone!
Last week was actually the first real week of our project.

On March, 15th the state of emergency in Romania got cancelled and successfully transitioned into the state of alert. Until now, the curve is still flattening, which might be viewed as a sign of positive changes. I am finally able to hang out with other members of our team in the Youth House as well as around the town. I was extremely happy to meet people in real life and also (re-)meet Timisoara, which is not anymore limited by the nearest supermarket.

After a few months of isolation and waiting, we got to work at our youth centers, which have not really been touched by anyone for about half a year. That fact brought us (me and my teammate Arus) to meet some (not at all) unexpected inhabitants of our place, such as spiders, which are peacefully doing their spider business, and grapevines, which are trying to break into the building through half-open windows.

Besides, we met some people from the neighborhood who have already offered some donations. We got to know people who administrate thermal stuff and I have even made an attempt to have a small talk in Romanian (which is quite big achievement for me). Next week we are planning to make our youth center look ready for upcoming events, even though in the nearest future all activities with young people around have to be conducted online.

The week ended with a workshop on conflict management where we met some guys from the local theatre group. We discussed some plans for the future work and maybe it will work out (together with young people from the community) after this whole covid thing passes.

Looking forward to (more) new people, places and experiences,
Katsia

Hello everyone!

My name is Katsia, I am 21 y.o. and coming from Belarus. Almost a year ago I obtained my bachelor degree and a feeling of not knowing what to do with my life. Somehow this feeling has led me to Romania, where I became a part of the ESC project “Youth centers UP”. During that project I managed not only get to know the beautiful city of Timisoara but also to contribute to the local community by helping to build a youth center in one of the neighborhoods. You can find out more about it, if you scroll down and read about Kamate team.

After the project was over, I felt so much connection and attachment to the place, as if I left a part of myself here. I just could not say no to the opportunity to spend a year here, doing what I really enjoy.

Despite all the troubles coming along with the formalities, I found a way to arrive in this charming city and pursue my passion. It is hard to imagine all excitement that I had about upcoming events and activities. I met (some not really) new people who were full of ideas and energy. Together with the FITT team we took a tour around the building of the youth house and even paid a visit to each of the brand new youth centers.

All the excitement had to stop when the pandemic crisis started. At first, everything was suspended. At second, those things which were not cancelled, had to move to the virtual dimension, where it is hard to build a team, make an impact on the community and simply have fun. At third, our lovely Timisoara was not available for us anymore and the most beautiful season of the year passed without even being captured.

Finally, the state of emergency is over, and we can enjoy again some things that we did not have. Some of the things are probably lost forever(?) but it is not necessarily negative changes. Slowly, we are getting our excitement and motivation back. There is still a lot to come. All we need is love just some hope, in order to adapt to the constantly changing situation more quickly and some warmth in our hearts, in order to help ourselves, each other and (even) the local community.

Do not give up on hope, maybe altogether we can fight the crisis with the power of our minds.

Katsia