00-EVS Newsletter Vol.2 12-2017 02-2018
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Issue II December 2017 - March 2018 ERASMUS+ EUROPEAN VOLUNTARY SERVICE・EVS We Are Volos' EvS I · WAVES I This is the 2nd Newsletter of WAVES I made exclusively by volunteers themselves We Are Volos' EvS I (WAVES I) is KEKPA-DIEKs project under Erasmus+ 2014-20 programme ▸ Key Action (KA) 1 ▸ Mobility of Youth ▸ European Voluntary Service (EVS) (project code: 2016-3-EL02- KA105-002832) that runs from 01 March 2017 until 31 May 2018. The project runs in Volos city, Greece and it is coordinated by KEKPA-DIEK (as a Coordinating organisation - CO). Within WAVES I, KEKPA-DIEK hosts (as a Hosting organisation - HO) 3 volunteers from 3 EU countiers: Cynthia Hernández Balaguer from Spain for a total duration of 12 months Severi Silius from Finland for a total duration of 12 months Sara Vanacore from Italy for a total duration of 8 months The respective Sending organisations (SO) of the above volunteers were: Pandora, Asociación para la integración y Progreso de las Culturas from Madrid, Spain (www.aipc-pandora.org) Alliansin Kehittamispalvelut, from Helsinki, Finland (www.nuorisovaihto.fi) Citta Di Torino from Torino, Italy (www.comune.torino.it) * Until the beginning of November 2017, Iris Garibovic from Hungary was part of the group of WAVES I volunteers through her EVS project ‘YEP - Youth Empowerment in Practice’ (Coordinating and sending organisation: Artemisszio Alapitvany (Fondation Artemisszio) from Budapest, Hungary KEKPA-DIEK, Municipality of Volos, Greece !1 Issue II December 2017 - March 2018 Carnival party In February (2018) there are carnivals, like everyone knows. In Volos there are celebrations in several places. To these celebrations, people put costumes on. One day while I was working in KEKPA-DIEKs kindergarten, the educators invited me to a party with a condition of putting a costume on ! A few hours before the party, I was looking for something to wear and the truth is that I didn’t have many choices. I took a lot of clothes of all colours and pretended to be a clown. When I arrived at the kindergarten, I changed the clothes and one educator gave me a clown hat. The others were laughing when they saw that I was wearing shoes of different colours and actually everything in different colours. All the children and some parents were coming with costumes on. Each one wore a different costume. Because there was no theme, you could be whatever you wanted. There were superheroes, Disney characters, pirates, chefs, etc. The educators had prepared games between the parents and the children. It was fun to see them playing. The children were laughing and having fun. I saw how the parents looked at their children proudly. After the games the educators and the parents were bringing food that they had made at home or that they had bought. We ate together from a free buffet and the truth is that the food was very good. It was nice to have the opportunity to try traditional Greek things. After the party I was with all the teachers and I began to notice that my departure is getting close. I felt that I will miss everything: the children, the educators and everything I have done this year. Then I realised that I don’t have to be sad about that but I have to be very happy to have experienced all this with the people I've met. Finally the only thing I can say about this evening is that it was magical, to see so many emotions together. Cynthia KEKPA-DIEK, Municipality of Volos, Greece !2 Issue II December 2017 - March 2018 Learning Greek language We had heard many things about Greek language before arriving to Greece. Maybe the sentence that described the Greek language for us was ”It’s all Greek to me”. Learning the alphabets seemed impossible ! After a few days of learning we started to read signs and other texts what we could find on the streets of Volos. By doing this we noticed that there are some similar words in Greek and in English or Spanish. In the workplaces of KEKPA-DIEK there were always people who didn’t speak English. By listening to these conversations we learned the basic phrases of the language. We wanted to speak also with people who didn’t speak English so we started to use them. It made them so happy when we spoke their language with them. Especially people with disabilities in KEKPA-DIEKs relevant centres seemed excited. In the afternoon we joined the English classes of the Roma youth. In there we were learning how to read and write the language. There were also people who didn’t speak English very well so every time we went there, we had to speak Greek and use the words we had just learned. In a couple of months we learned a lot of basic things about the language and didn’t feel so tourists anymore. After the summer we started to participate in the University of Thessaly’s Greek classes that were made for Erasmus+ students. In there we made some new friends and met people who were in the same level in Greek language with us. We learned basic dialogues for example how to order in a restaurant or how to buy bus tickets. After all these lessons we had, now we are both in a level where we can read, write and understand the language pretty well. The online course in OLS-Online Linguistic Support gave us also a help. I (Severi) got really excited about the language and started to spend my free time studying it. Now I can read and write much better. I can understand what is the subject in most of the conversations I hear and I can also speak the language although it’s still sometimes a bit slow. While travelling in Bulgaria I even communicated with a taxi driver in Greek because his English wasn’t so good. After the start the learning got much easier for both of us & Cynthia Severi KEKPA-DIEK, Municipality of Volos, Greece !3 Issue II December 2017 - March 2018 The affects of other volunteers We still remember the moment when we met each other for the first time at the airport in Athens almost a year ago (April 2017). Just hours before we had been in our home countries with our families. It felt so strange but exciting at the same time. We felt like this is a start of something great. We arrived to Volos together and for a month it was only two of us (Severi and Cynthia). At the beginning we had a huge language barrier but after going to same workplaces of KEKPA-DIEK and also spending almost all free time together, we started to understand each other. When Sara (end of April 2017) and Iris (May 2017) arrived, we were so excited to have new faces in our group. We spent time together although they were a bit older than us. After some time we got used to them and started to feel that our group has now four persons. We went to same workplaces and spent some free time together. We started to get to know the persons better and to learn more things about their cultures. Now it has been a couple of months since Iris (November 2017) and Sara (December 2017) left back to their home countries (Hungary and Italy, respectively). After that a lot of things have changed for both of us. It feels very different now. We used to spend a lot of free time with the other volunteers and the rooms are empty. For the first days we felt that something was missing. The time was really flying. Also the world seemed a very big place: just a short time ago they were here and now they are far away in different environment with different people and work. Now it actually feels a bit like at the beginning. We spend more time together only the two of us but also feel much more independent than before. We realised that some things have gotten easier. For example deciding things with a bigger group was more difficult than now. Also we have more privacy now, so we can spend time alone if we want. Things have been a bit more relaxing now. & Cynthia Severi 3 things I learned: from Sara: ▸ There is a solution to everything ▸ Patience ▸ Kindness & positiveness Cynthia from Iris: ▸ Peacefulness ▸ Concentration ▸ Hungarian culture from Sara: ▸ How to enjoy the little things ▸ Social skills ▸ Italian culture & language Severi from Iris: ▸ Positivity ▸ Acceptance ▸ Hungarian culture & language KEKPA-DIEK, Municipality of Volos, Greece !4 Issue II December 2017 - March 2018 Travelling in Greece To tell you the truth there’s so much things to see in Greece. The country is full of amazing historical places, educating archaeological museums, big cities with Greek culture, tiny villages with their own culture, picturesque islands, beautiful beaches, green natural places like mountains and national parks and much more. Because of this, we have been travelling to quite many places during our time in Greece. Usually we were travelling with someone else, but all of us did at least a bit solo travelling also. We had 2 trips all the 4 of us together (Severi, Cynthia, Sara and Iris): to Athens for on-arrival training in July 2017 and to Meteora & Mount Olympus in October 2017. Like we wrote in Newsletter 1, we made a lot of new friends in on-arrival training. After the training we met many of those EVS people and made great memories while travelling with them, in Ioannina & Lefkada (July 2017): we travelled to Ioannina to meet 3 of our EVS friends, who live there.