“ National Pretzel Day” or the ordinary “ Hug An Australian Day”. For all of us, known as the “short terms”, is not just that, but the day we started a new adventure in which Europe is our mother and Romania our land. (by Pedro Javier Diaz Cabral )
This day we legally started to be part of a Team Volunteering. A European Solidarity Corps type of project which aim is to gather people from all around the world and make them do some changes in the local community.
This touchy introduction has nothing to do with the extressefull first days of our adventure. If you are a person living in society you would know that beginnings are always difficult.
Matilde (one of our volunteers) said: I was feeling in a complete neutral mood, not happy or sad, just trying to figure out who my life was going to be for a month.
Thanks to the previous volunteers, known as the “long terms”, everything became easier and easier. They were these humans the ones that offered us everything when we had nothing, even some of them picked us up from the Timisoarian airport. They helped us to find ourselves in the biggest palace we have never lived in. An ex sovietic building in which it is impossible not to get lost, unless you walk with a “long term”.
After meeting part of our new family in the volunteers (shorts and longs), we had the chance to meet the other part of our new family members, The FITT team. A workaholic group of people that will work as much as needed in order to flourish the youth center.
Once you know your family, it is good to spend time with them and build a relationship, and that is what we did for the first days. What better place to gather than in a barbecue. Thanks to the extremely typical traditional romanian barbeque we learned that, without mici +mustard the world has not a complete sense.
Our family (Short terms, long terms and FITT workers) worshiping 2 of our more beloved volunteers.
And finally, everything seems to have settled down. We have a huge home full of huge people doing nothing, no, not at all. Well… it seems it is time to talk about what we did and how we did it.
The first activity we did all together was a flash mob. But not the extremely cool Flash mob in which everyone starts dancing, but a relaxed one. Called freeze Flash mob. I do not think I have to explain the term. The point of this pacific way of expressing ourselves was for the Timisoarian inhabitants to see that there are still public places that can be used to educate society in a much more non-formal way.
Yaroslav (a short term) claimed: The flash ove was the perfect way to meet people from the local community who want to do something powerful and useful for the society.
Pamela (a short term) adds: It was interesting to see that we can change the world without words. It was a freeze flash move in which we were not talking. Just by stopping in the middle of the street saying nothing, conscious lots of the inhabitants.
Another wonderful activity we did is promoting. We are promoters, we share content on social media, we distribute international flyers, we flirt as much as we can in discos. To sum up, we love our youth center to be known. The more the people know about casa Tineretului, the more alive the building is and the more we can contribute to society.
There is also physical work in our schedule. In one of the activities we took care of one of the youth houses we have by cleaning it and remodeling it somehow.
1st photo: cleaning one of our multiple youth centers
2nd photo: Communal hug after the flash move
As you can see, we are not just volunteers, but members of a family, promoters, architects and much more. Let’s see what Romania is preparing for us.
