Tag: esc volunteer

I find it incredible that a year has passed since I decided to come to Timisoara to do a European volunteering project. After a year of feeling lost and unmotivated, this experience came at the perfect time to give me back the desire and enthusiasm to do different things.

During this year, I have done more things than I can remember, and I have learned in so many aspects, that I still need time to process it. From construction and DIY, through marketing and social networks, to community engagement and facilitating activities for young people…

But it has also been a process of learning and personal discovery that has given me a lot. Living with 15 people in the same space has made me realize how important respect, patience, and empathy are. The multicultural environment in which we have moved here has made us more tolerant and aware of our weaknesses and strengths. We have experienced what solidarity is and we have learned a lot from each other. Despite some moments of chaos or small conflicts, there have been good vibes at Casa Tineretului all the time.

What, without a doubt, has made this experience something special and unrepeatable has been the people. Friends (who are already family), coordinators, youth workers, colleagues, locals… people who have inspired me and given me their time and love selflessly, and with whom I have shared everything. People who have made me feel at home from the first minute, and who have shown me that the bonds you create in experiences like these are much stronger than you can imagine at the beginning. They have made this something more than volunteering.

It is indisputable that what volunteering brings you goes far beyond the mere work you do in the host organization. But it is not only the project itself that makes this experience something remarkable that you will remember all your life. It’s all the extra hours you spend with colleagues, the talks that make you be more open-minded to new realities and points of view, teamwork, commitment, and dedication to a project that can have a very positive impact on the community… and, of course, all those fun moments you spend with your people.

Despite fatigue, improvisation or doubts, all this has been very worthwhile, and as much as I try to explain what all of this has meant for me, few people can understand it.

I have shared so many things, enjoyed everything so much, and received so many from others and from this experience… it excites me to know that I have been part of something so great that it has inspired, motivated, or encouraged other young people.

This will be with me forever and I hope to remember with pride that together with FITT and YCUP2, a group of international volunteers made magic.

I am back home exhausted but happy, grateful for the opportunity, proud of everything we achieved and looking forward to being back in Timisoara soon and seeing my dear adventure partners again.

The first week of the Youth Centres UP 2 project (first team of international volunteers for 30 days), in which an unused heating building is turned into a centre for the youth of a neighbourhood within about a month, started with team building activities.
This was followed by a shallow transition to the actual work on the centre, which, if one disregards the two-meter-deep hole in the entrance area, is a good starting point. So, initially divided into three teams with their own areas of responsibility, but ultimately as one team, we set to work.

Within three days, we performed the following tasks:

• Cleaning the garden and the building
• Scraping the walls
• Removing holes from the walls, leveling them and preparing them for painting
• Cutting trees
• Redesigning and making furniture

In parallel, we made a constant effort to involve the community by ending each of the days at the future youth centre with a joint community engagement. We talked to as many people as possible and collected opinions and ideas in order to design the place according to the wishes of the neighbourhood.
So, in conclusion, all we can say is that if we have been able to learn and create so much in such a short time, we can only look forward to the coming period with joy!

We are in the last week and everyone is active. The team is working hard to accomplishing the finishing part of the Building Renovation. The finishing part of the youth centre includes painting the walls, decoration of inside walls, cleaning all the floors and gardens and fixing the scratched and painted windows. The FITT team also helped us in the last week and some more friends joined to finish the renovation work in time. Even more admirable is the work of local volunteers with coordinators till the end of the day. Our friends showed their dedication, solidarity and worked hard for more than 12 hours on the last day before arranging the opening ceremony day.

Let’s read some testimonies from our volunteers’ experiences:

I was free in the summer and my father arranged for me to join the solidarity program. I really like to work with an international community. I find the work and everyone interesting and I like the schedule – it’s a good balance of work and rest and I find that mostly the minds of the youth are same irrespective of their culture and location. (Radu Jidovin, volunteer from the local community)

The last week was full of activeness and integration, it was the week of achievement. All the members were really working hard to contribute on their behalf to the project. On the last day, at the opening ceremony, I felt proud of myself and my whole volunteering team for their contribution. We worked, learned from each other and enjoyed ourselves together. (Hussein Abdo, Iraq)

In the last week, we made efforts with full zeal and zest to finish the work. The FITT team also helped us and that was encouraging to me and my friends. We painted the interior and exterior of the walls, cleaned the floors and arranged the whole centre for the first ceremony program. It was a great experience for me. I made new friends and I find the program interesting to learn a lot about social life. (Muhammad Usman, Pakistan)

The last week of work finished with the inauguration of the youth centre. Here are some captures of the results of our work:

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You can find out more about the project on its website.

During the renovation of the building in the 4^th week in Lugoj, we were no more working in groups, but rather everyone was joining some company and started to work while laughing and talking to each other. We worked a lot on walls and windows, we cleaned them and started painting, and the colleagues were really enjoying it. We learnt how to scratch and how to paint. We got some electricity problems and water shortage but it got fixed in the same week. 

The community engagement for this week was quite successful and we got three new volunteers from the local community. But not everyone was satisfied with the work progress. The team members were getting closer to each other and after work, we were arranging parties and celebrating teammate’s birthdays. It was the reason that progress in work was a bit slower but the solidarity among us got stronger by celebrating events together so the planning for the next week was to finish the painting and scratching the windows.

Here are some personal opinions of teammates about the progress of work:

I am happy and enjoying the project because the work for this week was painting and I really enjoyed painting. I felt very happy after painting when it looks decorative. In addition, I like to interact with local people during community engagement, the people of Lugoj are quite cooperative and interesting. (Syed Quosain Haider, Pakistan)

In the 4^th week, the painting was the easiest to do and scratching the windows was really tough but we did a lot of painting and scratching. I am thankful to all team members for helping me celebrate my birthday. Their kind wishes and lovely behaviour is something I will miss after the project. (Irem Aksoy, Turkey)

This week I did a lot of scratching to clean the windows, it was difficult but I worked with my friends and enjoyed their company. Here I really want to mention about cooperative and friendly people of Romania. I find it really interesting that most of the people can talk with us in English and they are ready to help us if we got any problems while travelling. I am happy to work for the youth of Romania because I explored Romania with my friends and one friend gave us residence and served us breakfast when we were left helpless at a train station because of missing the train. (Mohammad Farooqui, Pakistan)

Sometimes, I wonder how something as simple as a single question can change your life that much.

-Shall we go? –Let’s go!

This is how my conversation with my friend Miriam ended the day we decided to go somewhere else to be volunteers.

I have always been a girl who has thought that we all “have´´ to follow a standard life path for my background and surroundings. Fortunately, or unfortunately, 2020 came to our lives to change them at all. It has given us bad days, and it was, in my case, a rollercoaster of feelings though, I have lived through moments that if it hadn’t been for the pandemic situation, I would not have probably.

There will always be people telling you it is not a good time to have this kind of experience due to the world situation but, on the contrary, it was the best one for me.

I started my professional career in events management and marketing (what I studied for) when the Covid-19 appeared. Then, I went back to my hometown for almost a year (I left it when I was 18). I have excellent memories of what I did and who I spent my days with “there is nothing like being home ;)´´

I guess at some point, we all have felt lost this weird year. That was when I realised I had to do something else (because nothing ventured, nothing gained).

I have had two other experiences abroad, and I have always had the feeling to do it again. I do not know what the future has to offer me, but I am sure that it was the right idea to come to Timisoara.

Firstly, everybody doubts what will happen when it comes to an abroad experience, and I was not far. If I am honest, my expectations were not high. I think it was because the selection process was speedy, and I was not aware of the reality yet (I got my flight ticket one week after the interview).

Flights to Timisoara

After a one-day trip (and a few goodbyes), I arrived in Timisoara ready to have one of the best experiences in my life.

I am willing to work, learn a lot from everything and everyone, discover a new country and new people I will live and work with, have fun, and, one of the things I value most, grow personally and professionally.

Every part of the project has exceeded my expectations so far, and I am looking forward to seeing what has to come.

I always remember a phrase which says: ‘You win some, you learn some’. In this case, my insight is you do both, though.

This month, the ESC volunteers enjoyed spring at its finest. They took advantage of the great weather and had picnics, were on treasure hunts, city tours, organised and attended various online and offline events. In a word, they weren’t bored at all.  

April started with a great learning opportunity for the volunteers. They had the chance to organise a giveaway for the local youth and see how their audience reacts. Shortly after, another two volunteers, Miriam and Esther, joined the Youth Centres UP 2 project. On this occasion, all the volunteers have visited and examined the Youth Centres in the city.  

Spring revied their motivation, and they were excited to jump into work. Even the less creative tasks seemed easy and fun to do. So they finished the Community Engagement guidelines, created a partnership database for short-term volunteers and sent out offers. They regularly post on Facebook and Instagram fun and exciting things about themselves and their activity in the project. Feel free to follow them! 

As mentioned before, they had experienced spring at its finest, which means they had many outdoor activities. They started the month with a nice friendly picnic, then participated in a treasure hunt in the Youth House to find out more about the building. Then, Ion organised a city rally in which the volunteers and employees discovered Timisoara through a treasure hunt. At the end of April, a cycling event (by Centrul de Tineret Martirilor) near the Bega River to promote outdoor sports in the spring took place. Also, the volunteers took part in a significant project: they distributed flyers and posters in the city to inform local people about the Vaccination Marathon at the end of April.  

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Regarding the current pandemic situations, they also had many online trainings, events and workshops too:  

• Videography photoshoot with Katsia; 
• Online travelling – event organised for the local youth together with the youth workers from FITT, where they presented Turkey and the Turkish culture; 
• On Arrival Training – a week-long training for the volunteers, where they learnt, among others, about the roles in their project, cultural differences, cultural iceberg, non-violent communications, etc.; 
• Public Speaking – an online event that introduced the local youth to the world of confident speaking. 

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The month ended with a tremendous non-formal event between the volunteers. They tasted different national foods of their countries at the International Dinner.  

We’re looking forward to taking all the good vibes of this month and turn them into good energy in the following period!  

“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.   

Instead of sunny spring weather, cheerfulness and motivation, March brought moodiness and motivation drop to the ESC volunteers. But, as soon as the sunrays appeared, the work resumed. 

But the sun rose as a saviour for them. Even though the local quarantine extended at the end of March, the four volunteers immersed strength from the sun’s rays and began to plan. They researched group activities and community engagement ideas in order to prepare fantastic programs and projects for the local youth. They also had a creative and very effective meeting about how to promote a survey among young people. For increasing the number of completions, they scheduled, together with FITT, a giveaway for the local youth.  

Compared to how hard things were at the beginning of the month, the volunteers got into the end-of-month project with momentum. We hope this enthusiasm will follow them in April too. 

365 or maybe a few more days passed by, but I feel it was just instant when I’ve just arrived and now it’s time to say goodbye.  

Say goodbye to the city that completed the warm environment for a year for me, goodbye to the organization that supported us till the end, goodbye to the youth centre that in a short time became a place for expressing and understanding ourselves, goodbye to stores, malls, streets, goodbye to the culture that gave us lots of feelings, happiness, and joy and finally, goodbye to the people who have made this year for me, people or maybe just a person who became the biggest achievement for the year for me. 

After all the things I have tried to count, I don’t even know if it can be possible to count the number of things I studied and the experiences that I got. But I still can name something: the experience I have got was the best opportunity to see myself in different fields and to build myself in a professional and personal perspective. Which, I can truly declare, I did completely.   

Besides all these, I also remember how many times I got upset during this year, and how many times I told myself that this is it. Sometimes, I even thought to simply leave the project, but something always pushed me back, and now I am so happy about that. When I look back on how my personality was a year ago, and how it is right now, I feel much more developed, grown, and flexible.   

I really wish that my story becomes a source of motivation for you, the one who is reading it. And I hope that in the future, I will have the chance to read your story as well. 

I remember stepping into that huge building, Casa Tineretului. My baggage was heavy and so were my feelings, faced with the fact that I did it, I came back. It looked like nothing has changed. Dimmed lights were illuminating the walls, the echo of my steps was filling the space and the memories began to return in bursts. 

Happiness was mingled with anticipation and I stood in front of my decision, wondering if it was right. 

One year later I got my answer… 

There is no proper way to sit down and write about how this year felt for us, neither about what we have learned or what we have not. After all, it is still too early to define the range of our prospect to emerge all the gained knowledge, isn’t it? But at least I can try.  

What matters is what we all have inside of us. The change that came and will follow us back home. In the last days we could only wipe our tears and let the family go, all the members at their own side. That is life, that is what you learn. We learned to overthrow the differences that we, just a couple of months before, were holding on so tight. We recognize the glare in all the constructive discussions, or how we like to call them, fights. If this one year would become two, and we would have one more chance to be here and do what we do, we would obey the decision to stay united and loved. But it is just one year. And transience overtook us faster than we expected. 

Things to appreciate

Thereafter, we will learn to appreciate the moments, the big ones and the ones that at first sight seemed small, to give them the value that they deserve. The difference between them is deceiving. We will learn about the stories coming from our youth centers, and how the work continued many years after. The young people will have a shelter and a safe space to discover others and themselves. The same way how we did while bewildered going to organize public speech on the topic of human rights. The yearning feeling of going back and getting just one more slice of that cake made out of knowledge will consume us, and we will learn that the decision was right.  

Details are important, mrut jan. Smells, aromas, and side notes that you leave in the kitchen. But there will always be some malaka, which will not know if he left an empty glass on the table. And it’s possible that that glass was filled with jin tonic and a lot of ice. The ambulance could pass next to your window each time when you’re speaking on the phone, and people will not understand how. And sometimes you will hear someone singing in the living room, or while showering.

From across the street of Aries 19, late at night, when the whole Timisoara is sleeping, you could see one or two lights still being on. And there were some shadows on the curtain. These shadows have their dreams, oddly they keep them sometimes, but many times they share them. Those shadows would often be late from a common meeting and will need only bi dakka bi dakka to join. They laugh. A lot. And cry. And then laugh again because there was always a hug and a bad joke to suppress the silence.  

But believe me, no, really, believe me, all this will matter to you only when it’s time to leave.