Ciao! Sono Ferran e vengo di Barcellona, della Spagna!
When I was in Spain I studied for two years degree of tourism. It opened me so many jobs opportunities related with customer service, I’ve been in a tourist information point, I worked as a receptionist, I was for a while in a travel agency…
My curiosity of exploring new cultures, new countries and new people brought me to many places abroad, mainly in Ireland where I worked as a waiter for 2 years. Always working in the same field, I ended up loving so much working with people. So far it’s what I’m looking for, cooperating can be a great experience to grow as a person and develop new skills. And which best place to start a volunteer for the first time than Italy? Its people, its food, its history, its culture…I always loved this country so much!
At the current moment along with the volunteer I’m studying Art History in an online university from Spain, so here I will be able to see most of the things that I’m studying.
Thank you so much @eurosud_ngo to host me in Triggiano and thanks to @geyc.ro and Eurexia for supporting this international experience!
During July the volunteers from EUROSUD we took part at the mid training evaluation, from the European Solidarity Corps program. The MTE (Mid-Training Evaluation) was taking place in Rome, in a hotel close to Vatican City. It was an intensive week where we talked about important experiences, learning process and reflected on our ESC program, each one of us. Different volunteers from different countries, located in different parts of Italy, we putted knowledge in common and reflected on our goals of the volunteer mission.
Talking about the overview of the learining experience we first reflected on our experience in the country since the beginning until now. Focusing on different aspects such as: activities, hosting and even future plans after ESC like job opportunities, other kind of volunteers, studying… The teachers from the MTE they talked a lot during the exchange about Youthpass certificate.
How we should fill it up by ourselves, techniques to do so and to not get lost. They talked as well about why should be useful in the future, how can it enrich our CV, and the necessity of making it valuable. We also shared about our experiences with other volunteers. I think this is an important point in all exchanges.
Talking about different perspectives, which difficulties had to face each one of us, how we over passed those difficulties…
Talking about the key activities and sessions, in this case I would highlight two of them.
On one hand I would highlight the sessions about Youthpass, because after it I had a better knowledge of how I can take advantage of it, and in which way would it help me in the future. They also gave us tips on how to keep track of the competences learnt to avoid reaching to the end without realizing on which abilities I improved. Another valuable session for me was when we did a team work about future plans after ESC.
As I mentioned before, some of us were looking forward to find a job, some others wanted to keep volunteering after this, some others wanted to studying something, some others wanted to travel… For each motivation we created different groups, we tried to find out how to accomplish our goals and through which sources. I was in the working team, so we searched for different ways to find a job.
What I keep with me after the MTE is on one hand the sessions that talked about the impact on how I contribute in my ESC activities. I can keep it with me as long as I’m doing the volunteer, but I think it is as well a soft skill that is gonna be useful for the rest of my life. In any job I will have it into account. This soft skill is about being ethic and moral: doing favors for others in an altruistic way, even if you don’t expect anything in exchange. Another thing that I would keep with me is the reintegration skills discussed in one session. This would be more useful later on, when coming back to Spain.
For me this experience has been very useful and valuable, because it gives me a feeling that we are not alone. It shows us that there are actually a lot of people doing a volunteer in Italy, and we can support each other. Sharing with others is very valuable and it can actually give you inspiration for your own activities or to overpass problems. Apart from this I consider that this kind of exchanges are very funny and you can always do last long connections with other people, so I like it in this way too.
To conclude just say that the experience overall was a nice one. The training was well organized, just like the first one that we did. For me the enriching experiences that MTE offers, shows us that the new methods and ideas that we contribute in our organization and activities, are of a deep value for the future of the local community in general.
May
May has been a very nice month. I kept on doing my volunteer activities, impacting the local community working mainly with kids. On one hand I have been doing the English lessons in Capurso school. As I said last month, we are doing a lecture of a book called: “Pete the Cat and the New Guy”. We are going step by step and slow to make sure that the kids understand properly the narrative. We want them to understand what’s happening on the book and the meaning behind it as well. It is about being inclusive and show that everyone has its own power or ability. Apart from the lecture as I mentioned we are preparing some drawings because each kid is gonna have its own book. We had it almost ready this part since the beginning of the month. We just needed to improve some parts. So we agreed with the teachers that we could prepare as well a kind of audio book with the voices of the kids. We tried it and the result was perfect. Now at the end of the month each kid have their own book with a collective audio book. The activity was useful for them to practice the pronunciation.
Regarding the activities in Tou.play I have been taking more initative lately, so this is always nice to teach with more confidence and security. I feel like I improved a lot since the first time I started to do this kind of job. I had no experience teaching kids, so I developed lot of new pedagogical skills. I’m satisfied with my progress, even if it’s been a difficult way, it has been worth it. With kids even playing games it’s tiring because as I said last time, they want to impose their own rules and most of them don’t know how to lose. They always want to be the winners.
About the Italian lessons I feel like I’m improving some more vocabulary in different topics. A thing that I like from Italian lessons is that we have the chance to talk and practice the language with the teacher and colleagues. It was interesting this month because we went to a little “forest” inside of Bari. It is actually like a park in the middle of the city with plenty of different types of flowers and trees. We went the whole class with the teacher and colleagues. There was a guide who talked about the plants and trees, their origin and some more in Italian. So we had the chance to get better in Italian regarding this topic.
At the beginning of the month, apart from my activities, I joined with Daniela a walk in Triggiano against pollution and destroying of the environment. The walk was called “Il Percorso della Lama” and the scouts from Triggiano and some volunteers like us joined the walk in the countryside of Triggiano. As we were passing by, we were putting into bin bags some plastics, papers, cardboards… The objective was to protest doing a solidarity walk and cleaning a bit the place where we were passing by.
Then I saw as well my parents because we planned a trip to Naples. It was the first time that I saw them before leaving my home in January, so it was a very special time for me.
June
June has passed and we can say now that we are already in summer! The temperature it’s been increasing over the last two last weeks of June. With the hot whether we can finally go to the beach in la Puglia!
At the end of May ended the winter schedule that we had established since the beginning of the volunteer. Italian lessons finished, so I tried to keep on practicing the language on my own at home. The other option is keep on practicing the language as well with the language exchange that I join every Wednesday. The activity in Tou.play ended, so it was a bit sad having to say goodbye to the experience and saying goodbye to some kids with who I had good relationship. The good thing is that I was planning to participate in the summer camp that Tou.play offers. So I could see them again at the end of the month, when the summer camp starts. It ended as well the activity in Capurso school.
I think for me it was the hardest activity to say goodbye, I enjoyed it the most. I felt like those kids learnt a lot of English thanks to my contribution, but I learnt a lot from them too. I learnt how to deal with kids, some Italian culture but overall kids offer you a kind of happiness that nobody else can give you. I went to see a theater show that the kids were preparing as a last activity of the course, and I was so proud of them. They were representing in Italian in front of their parents a comedic satire called: “I vestiti nuovi dell’imperatore”.
Even if all this activities ended between the end of May and beginning of June, I was very busy during this month. That’s because in my case actually I had to be focused on my exams, I was doing the exams from university at the end of June so I was studying most of the free time. Then I got invited in participating a Erasmus + organized by Eurosud. It was the Gender Equality Week, as I posted in this same website no too long ago. I
leant a lot during this exchange about the topic, geeting to know the real gap between men and women. It was a very nice week where I had the chance to meet as well lots of young people from all over Europe. But coming back to Triggiano after this experience I tried to focus even more than before with my studies, because in less than two weeks I would be doing my exams. I started with Mensa Ristorante Sociale this last week of June. At the moment seems a very nice place, with good vibes inside in the kitchen and a funny place to work. It looks as well that I could learn a lot about Italian and cooking recipes.