Ambassadors of European Values
My name is Carmen and this is a story of
my year in France Bordeaux. So for the beginning I am going to tell you how
I ended up as a volunteer in the first place. When I was 15 years old, I
had my first youth exchange and after that I fell in love with travelling and
meeting people all over the world. Ever since then I have taken part of 6
exchanges. Fast forward to 12th grade when everyone was thinking about universities and what to study
next but my head was elsewhere - my dream was to work as a volunteer, and
because of that I ended up taking a gap year and going to France to be an “Ambassador of European Values” for the House of
Europe in Bordeax.
So, on 3rd of
September I found myself in the capital of wine. We started off things
easy. Our organization gave us time to settle in and meet the city. We were
staying in a student residence apartments where I shared my flat with a
Romanian girl. All together there were 14 EVS people from six countries and in
addition to that our organization had recruited ten civil service volunteers..
Meeting with
civil service volunteers
All the
volunteers together
Since our main
tasks where to talk about European Union and everything that concerns it we had
to go through educational lectures/workshops made by professors and other
specialists. This prepared us very well for the future jobs and made us more
professional.
After the
preparation, it was time to start working. We were all divided into groups of
three people. Our daily job included going to different schools where we made
interesting workshops for kids on European matters or about our countries and
culture in general.
Besides working
in schools, we got to do other exciting activities. For example, collaborating
with Unicef to organize a day for kids packed with exciting activities. Working
with the local town hall to help organize an international energy conference,
and the luckiest ones got to go to Wales for a study visit.
A day with
Unicef
But the most
anticipated and perhaps scariest moment for me and my fellow Estonian volunteer
was February or should I call it the month of Estonia. Our mission at that time
was to prepare a cultural night with Estonian food and presentation made
entirely in French. Doing something like that generally does not scare me but
the problem was the language. I went to France without knowing the language and
at that point it was still not good. In addition to our presentation we had to
cook Estonian foods. It was a struggle to find black bread but other than that
our efforts paid off and the food was delicious. In the end the hard work paid
off and everything went smoothly.
My year as a volunteer was not only work
and no fun. I managed to do a lot of travelling around France and also abroad.
I met so many new people from all over the world with who I connected and am
staying in contact even though I am back in Estonia.
In conclusion, my year as a volunteer
was so much more then just working in France, It was a growing experience that
shaped me into a person I
am today. I am far from finished being a volunteer and I hope that while in
university I find other projects where I can contribute to the society. Once a
volunteer, always a volunteer!
This Project was financed by European Commission's Erasmus + Programme
Great moments with our two volunteers!! Thanks for everything Carmen and Hedi !!! The Meba Staff ;-)
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