Associazione Agrado

martedì 1 novembre 2016

Rural Intercultural in Romania



Volunteering in Romania

This is the final report from RURAL INTERCULTURAL EVS project in Craiova- Romania that foresaw many volunteers from different parts of Europe.
Associazione Agrado was glad to be partner in it and we thank a lot Pasquale, our EVS volunteer, for his curiosity and passion and Silvia, from the Hosting Organisation Soroptimist International  Craiova, for her care!

Seven young volunteers decided to have a journey in an unknown land, very close to Transylvania. To help, to grow, to experience and to have a lot of fun.
It was what the “Rural intercultural” EVS project was for Monika, Bojan,  Kubra, Emine, Semih, Ceylin and Pasquale, who left Macedonia, Turkey and Italy, to work with children and youth in the south of Romania.
They had the chance to explore rural and urban areas, to see contrasts, to bring their support where it was most needed.
I give you their experiences, to inspire you on your own journey:



Kubra:
During my project after ı visited rural schools and saw that they don’t have enough opportunities and don’t know a lot of things about the worlds but still they can struggle with these poor conditions, ı told myself that ı should learn a lot of things and improve myself to help them better.
In my future I’ll use my experiences that ı got in EVS. If ı struggle with any problem ı’ll remember how ı managed to  handle with my problems during EVS.
My volunteering experience helped me to become more active, more flexible and open towards new ideas by other people. I became more creative with all the activities, but also I learned to take risks and cope better with it than I used to do. This whole experience made me aware of the importance of young active people in the community, working on projects and setting examples for others. It gave me a bit more of an idea of what I would like to do in my future and that I could use all the connections that I made with other volunteers for future projects.
Monika
I gained a lot of respect and understanding for other cultures, by this experience I became open-minded and learned how to be patient towards differences and find solutions easily. This will help me in the future as I develop even more because I want to work on projects more actively, collaborating with people from other countries.
Also, by helping the teachers and working with the children I saw that I influence them in terms of opening their horizons towards new cultures, towards being active in their community and also encouraging them to learn English more actively by making them see it is something that will improve their communication skills and possibilities in the future.
This entire seven months process has been a learning experience for me. Starting from an everyday-life informal learning, which was unplanned like the culture, the cultural differences, the lifestyle, to all of the non-formal education that I gained through working with children, helping the teachers in their work, making crafts, organizing workshops, and to the formal education which came in a form of Romanian language classes. By all this I became aware of my personal ability to learn, the best ways to do it and that the non-formal way of learning suits me best, so by this I saw the difference in the learning styles between what I experienced so far in the schools that I studied and at the university. I
also learned how to organize better while learning or working in order to give the best of me and gain better results.


Bojan
Many of the stereotypes that i had about Romania were quickly changed by meeting new local people from Craiova and Romania in general. They helped me in every situation needed and they guided me to the right direction, just to fit in to the society better.
The teachers were amazing because they were letting the kids do what they want without setting some sort of boundaries. They were extremely creative with their paintings, crafts and any other activities that we were doing. They looked and felt free. That is what i enjoyed the most about working with them
This experience helped me to overcome some fears that i had such as speaking in front of strangers or a large crowd, it made me more aware of organizing my time more efficiently and i increased my punctuality. It made me realize how important it is to meet all the people involved in the project and beyond, because maybe those people can help you and be a factor in something in your future, you never know what can happen. 
I became more creative and more open minded when it came to the activities that we were doing with the kids. I learned not to be afraid to take risks, that it was okay if we made mistakes or not being afraid to ask if something was unclear.
Over all, this experience helped me see myself in a whole different perspective and position that i never thought that i would be in. And it made me realize how much powerful the youth can be.

Pasquale
I developed a quite impressive number of social contacts here in Romania during my EVS. I have been very curious towards the language spoken, the culture and the different style of life. I realised how important is to build a truly European citizenship and how this can overcome conflicts among different culture. EVS is a great program that fosters integration across and outside Europe. I met new people and made new friends outside Europe.


 Ceylin
Romania was my first abroad experience. I was a little scared before I came here. Different cultures, different people… it was hard to adapt at first. But there were Turkish friends at the building where I stayed  and they helped me adapt. I had the chance to meet many foreign friends. Because of this I developed my foreign language learned new cultures.
The biggest contribution of this project to me is the knowledge I gained about the autistic children, people in need and school children at the villages. This helped me organize activities such as fingerprinting, play-dough. We prepared food and gave away clothes to people in need. We organized activities in the village schools’ as well. Being able to learn, help, and see the smile on the faces of these people made me really happy.

Let’s do great things together! Let’s EVS!