It was a week of getting ready and cheering each other on.
The first wing was a preparatory group work, part and the end of last week. Week after week, we learn how to climb the mountains of adventure, our adventure is to jump in order to look into the far future.
It was only possible to encourage each other and pay attention to the smallest details that changed the course of our work and our psychology, which is the most important thing.
The second wing was full of surprises that are getting to know and talking to local people in order to get more information which is really a way to deliver young people a youth house in their neighbourhood (Dorobantilor).
Talking to people and getting to discover more about Romania, is a wonderful thing for me personally. This was the best of every team I was in, with all humility!
The most surprising thing I found out is that my name is love in Romanian, which, by chance, was told to me by a former FITT volunteer (thank you, Eliza!).
The beginning of the week was full of surprises that put us to the test of self-control and prudence to continue our work and reach the next stations.
It was a surprise with some of the things that we naturally encounter and how we should deal with them.
Enjoying moments with volunteers
VIEWS STATION
It was the occasion, during this week, to live with different kinds of windows like points of view. We also shared time with the team through digital games and meetings. We had to confront the digital issue because we were not prepared and used to have 100% of our interactions online with the rest of the team.
The question was how to consider these new borders when we watched outside:
Positive sense > pay more attention outside, be attentive by observing the landscape, etc.
Negative sense > considered as impassible borders or obstacles that we can not reach, overtake.
The last window was the metaphysical window of time and liberty. It is a spiritual question. The question was how to be in peace with ourselves, how to be occupied and to be active in this period of time in a very limited physical space.
Our view through the window
ASSIMILATION STATION
What is assimilation for me?
You have more time to sit down and talk to yourself, and it was an important station to move forward in the project and think about everything that could happen and how to deal with it or in the sense of being fully prepared for obstacles.
Also, meditating on nature and observing people’s behaviour from the window, when you see people waiting for the bus and the ascender helps the other to get off, this is part of nature.
This week has been one of the most wonderful parts of the project.
The fourth week began as the third had ended: with a lot of paint. Walls turned yellow, ladders were carried around and brushes were dipped into buckets until even the last corner of the building had the colour of our imagination. A little later, we slowly reached a point where things we hadn’t cared about before suddenly became relevant. That means, among other things, that we cleaned the bathroom, which was full of paint, went hunting for tape remnants and tried to remove dirt and paint from the floor. At the same time, we were able to give the youth centre more character by means of a sofa that had been donated to us, a carpet and other furniture. In this way, we drove the spirit of the construction work out of the building.
Last week of work
The opening followed. We had prepared the neighbourhood for this beforehand by putting up posters in the streets with invitations to it. Walking around in clean clothes and without paint or dust in our hair in the spaces we had spent weeks tinkering with was strange, of course, but added mostly to the sense of closure. The opening included games, live music, speeches and food, as well as visiting from the neighbourhood, which made our work seem more relevant than ever.
Opening speeches
While perhaps not everything went perfectly and still isn’t perfect, we did our best for a month, and certainly laid the groundwork for a place for the neighbourhood’s youth that now only needs to be put to good use. In conclusion, all we can say is that we can look back with pride and wish the next 9 teams an equally beautiful and successful time!
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.
Onboarding & Team building activities
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
Working on the walls
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!
This year started out as one of the weirdest of my life. If someone told me six months ago everything I was going to live, I would have said, without thinking, that it was not possible to happen.
Going out of the comfort zone
This is the first thing you experience when you decide to be a volunteer. I arrived in Timisoara 6 months ago without expectations at all. Then, all of a sudden, I saw myself sharing a flat with nine other people from other countries around Europe.
Since your first week of volunteering, you can realise you are living with people who are very different from you, have other traditions and ways of thinking. This experience makes you be able to respect everyone and adapt yourself to them. Being more open-minded is something that you learn even without noticing it.
Countries that volunteers are from
An intense experience
We all agreed that time flies when enjoying it. Anyone who has ever lived something like this before, might have lost track of time for sure. How can time go that fast and, at the same time, be full of emotions, discoveries and learning?
So many new people in my life (most of them will stay forever) who I spent time with (living, working, going out, …). There are things that bring people together, experiences that create such strong bonds that they will never be broken. People who are with you through this personal and professional learning process. The personal change is great, but also the one related to work. Your development increases day by day.
Sharing this adventure with young people like me, doing something new for other young people in a country which is not yours, is one of the best things when it comes to be a volunteer, even though it is hard sometimes.
Volunteers team with our coordinator
I still have other 6 months to continue making the most of them, adding new people and lived experiences to my life. Let’s see what the future has to offer!
Hi! My name is Charlie and I am a volunteer in Timis County Youth Foundation, I’ve chosen to volunteer in this organization because it was for me a great opportunity to leave abroad and to do something concrete for other young people like me, somewhere else in the world. I work together with a team of international volunteers from all over the world, and together we want to present to you 10 reasons why you should become a volunteer as well!
Meet wonderful people from everywhere in the world
“I felt like being involved the in important things for the society we live in and I met wonderful people. Volunteering is an experience, and I would encourage anyone to do this wholeheartedly”
Change the world at your scale and make a difference
“Now, in Timisoara, I am trying something different, challenging but at the same time, a teaching thing: helping young people in a different country have their own youth space, and it was one of the most yielding decisions I made in my life”
Create bridges between the communities
“This is a great opportunity to do something meaningful for a community. It is a rich human experience that opens up to different realities and will for sure make you grow”
Open yourself to new realities and problematics
“Volunteering is a unique experience that allows you to know other realities and points of view and gives you the chance to be part of a project that unites communities. It is the best way to enrich yourself as a person and as a professional”
Help people in need
“Volunteering often involves helping those in need and it can be useful in showing us that, in fact, our own lives are not as bad as we thought they were”
Know yourself and the ones around you better
“It gives you the opportunity to improve your skills and learn new ones, to better know yourself and those around you, and to make friends for life. Volunteering is life-changing and, somehow, it changes your way of thinking”
Try a new experience
“Volunteering gives you the chance to give something back to the community or just to make a difference from people around you. It also helps you develop new skills or build an exciting experience and knowledge”
Become more confident in English
“Volunteering gives you the chance to improve your language and communication skills and make you expanding your comfort zone”
Learn deeply about a culture
“Volunteering is a way to discover the world: you get abroad for a more or less long period, you stay in a place and learn to get to know it, the habits, the language, the people… all in a truer way than if you were just passing by and visiting. You learn, you give things, and those you meet along the way will give some back to you. You might even get to meet your own true self in the end…”
Accept differences and be more tolerant
“In the beginning, joining in a big volunteering project could seem scary, changing your all life for a long period of time is a hard challenge. But there, I learned a lot of life lessons, but some of the most important are that all origins are the same. It doesn’t matter your religion, where you come from, or the color of your skin. Those things don’t define if you are a good or bad person.”
And an eleventh one because we are generous …
Have fun!!!
“During my volunteering project, I’ve learned to collaborate with other people, learned new dance steps from different countries. Tried a lot of new drinks especially local drinks. And enjoyed a lot of laughter and nice memories. I would motivate all of you young people to come and join this or kind of these volunteer experiences if you wanna spend good days away from your normal life and improve your social circle. It’s a little work with a lot of fun. But always the fun part is hidden. It’s top-secret. ;)”
If you also wanna know how can volunteering change your life and are curious to try a new experience, check our website.
We propose new volunteering projects regularly and you can see more about our organization.
In the 3rd week of the project, we got our positive vibes volunteer, Yogesh Kumar, back. We started working as one team rather than splitting into four groups. As a solo team, every volunteer helped his or her colleague and tried each group’s task. In this way, we tried each kind of work without getting bored by one work. However, the work was more physical, but being energised by our committed and diligent coordinator, Alex Foale, it became more convenient.
The tasks that we did this week are the following:
Fixing the roof
Scratching the garden walls
Making furniture for garden through pallets
Painting windows
Scratching and painting of some walls
Community engagement
With persistent progress, we finished some works this week, like fixing the roof, scratching the garden walls and the walls of the rooms. The roof was renovated by removing extra still rocks and filling holes with cement. Moreover, in the garden we did the scratching of walls, clearing out the excess branches, and setting up the furniture made through pallets. Moreover, we finished the scratching of all room’s walls. These were the first achievements that we received after continuous hard work. Everyone was happy and we got the treat of some delicious ice creams from a school.
In addition, as the walls were being scratched completely, we started painting on them. But before that, we cleaned profoundly all the rooms so that dust cannot spoil the paint. This painting part was so fun and exciting that made everybody dance. Also, this work was not that much hard as compare to others, as it was under shadow and not that much physical.
Equally important, this week we did two community engagements with some new ideas to distribute the flyers and that resulted in the addition of three new local volunteers. They brought new energy to work and that boosted us to work more and more.
To conclude, this week went with lots of accomplishments and achievements; we finished almost 50% of the whole work. This all happened because of our solidarity and incessant struggle. Furthermore, the local community is also energising us by contributing their part, either by donating useful things or by helping us as volunteers.
Lately, I have been thinking many times about how I want my future to be. Although things have changed a lot since the last time we could go out without a mask, and we did not have a curfew, life goes on, and we have to adapt to new circumstances.
For this reason, after finishing my university studies last year and realizing that my professional career could not start as I had planned, I decided that volunteering in Europe was the best option. I have always wanted to do volunteering, and due to lack of time and other excuses, I have postponed many times.
The last months have not been easy for anyone, we have had to learn how to deal with certain challenging situations with fear and uncertainty, and we have witnessed how our freedom was reduced day by day. However, when in January I proposed to my friend Esther to apply to ESC, we did not doubt it. “It is now or never,” we thought.
Surprisingly for us, the whole selection process was pretty quick, and in a month and a half, we were getting ready to come to Romania. I know we are so lucky to have the chance to live this experience together. We are friends since we were just three years old. I think, Romania is a beautiful country, which is sometimes so underrated, and getting involved in a valuable project like Youth Centres Up 2 is a great chance.
Besides those mentioned above and after my Erasmus in Finland in 2015, which was an incredible experience that opened my mind incredibly, I discovered the European Solidarity Corps. That’s when I thought that any opportunity to live abroad gives you a priceless experience that takes you out of your comfort zone and forces you somehow to improve yourself every day. Hence, one way or another, we feel like we should make the most out of this adventure.
In this case, the level of responsibility is high, but we have to commit to our decisions. If not, progress will never happen. Now we need to work side-by-side with other young people on a joint project that will unite us, with which we will explore new things, and learn a lot. Undoubtedly, although challenging situations will come, this experience will enrich us in many aspects.
Finally, after a few months here in Timisoara, I feel comfortable, proud of the decision I have made, and welcomed by a group of extraordinary people.
Apart from that, I realize that whenever we think we know the future, even for a second, it changes. Sometimes it changes quickly and completely, and we are left only with the choice of what to do next. We can choose to be afraid of it, to stand there, trembling, not moving, assuming the worst that can happen, or we can choose to go on with the best possible attitude.
In the end, I think it is just about taking a step forward into the unknown and assume it will be brilliant.
“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.
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.
Farewell ceremony
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.
