Casual week of a EVS (Giedre)

Actually it is really hard to write how the week of volunteer looks like. The main fact is that volunteering is somewhere out of routine and you can never know what is going to happen. However, I will try to make at least some guide lines how it would look.

Down here you can see my week, and now I will try to explain in more details what is what. It's just my week and other volunteers have different schedules, so don't think that everyone does the same things!

	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Morning	Office	School/office	School/             JCV in Action	School/Blog	Ponto Vermelho
Afternoon	Office	Ponto Vermelho	JCV in Action	Ponto Vermelho
Evening	Portuguese classes	Atelear Creativo	Portuguese classes

So let’s start from the beginning. Monday is a really good day to start work. It can go slowly for you to get in the mood of work, so here is no pressure (normally). Usually I come to the office around 9:30-10:00. This is the time to find out what things are more important to work on and what things I can leave to be done for later during the week.

As I am a part of a project JCV in action, the work there is never like a routine. You never know what might come up and working with international projects is really fun. Like few months ago I would have spent my Mondays while reading CVs of people who want to be the next EVS and I have read more than 100 of CV and Motivation Letters. Believe me it takes a lot of time. So normally my Monday goes while working on the things of JCV in Action. After work on Mondays I have classes of Portuguese.

Tuesday stars with some kids’ action. I go to school for the long break of half an hour to play with them. After school, back to the office to think of, what we might want to do this evening in the Atelear Creativo. After lunch it’s Ponto Vermelho. There normally on Tuesdays we have to do the checking of the clothes that arrive with our lovely Carrinha and to pick witch ones will go to the shop and which ones will go to the famous Lixo (trash)– it’s basically the only word you need to understand in Ponto. After Ponto we have some time for quick food and after there is Ateliar Creativo. There we normally do some crafts with kids.

Wednesday morning is also either going to school (a different one) or staying in the office and helping with JCV in action things. Afternoon is all for the JCV in Action work where we work on international projects, EVS and everything that is connected with Erasmus+ or other possible programs. After Office there is another Portuguese class and half of the week is done.

Thursday morning is for school or writing this lovely blog, or working on Facebook page of Ponto Vermelho. In the afternoon is again Ponto. There on Thursdays we normally get the Carrinha again and we are till our necks with bags of things to check.

Friday morning is again in Ponto, but on Fridays we arrange the shop and make it look nicely, as well we think of some ideas to improve the appearance of the shop and ways how to make it more appealing.

Friday afternoons I have free, but it was not all the time like this.

The schedule of the Portuguese classes changed, and there was a period between the courses (we are lucky and we got 2 semesters of Portuguese classes in the university of Minho), when we had more work in the office. As well in the summer there will be no school and there will be more projects to occupy kids, so the schedule will change again.

For now, my schedule is like this, with some tiny changes that appear during some unplanned events.

Gi

    

Dinners of Juventude

For those who might not know, the Youth department of Red Cross Portugal in Braga is working since 2005. Well, Red Cross of Portugal is working for already 150 years, but I still think that for the Youth department is already pretty great amount of years. Why am I talking about years? Because with years comes traditions.

Today I want to tell you about one really great tradition that exists in Juventude – Monthly dinners.

Families from time to time gather together to have a meal, talk with people that might not have seen for a while, or just enjoy a lovely company. Juventude also does the same. Every first Wednesday of the month normally during the day you can already notice that something is strange. Normally, because in the second part of the day the office becomes more and more crowded.

Sometimes I even forget how many people are in Juventude, but on the day of the dinner it’s really easy to remember that. All the corners of the office fill up with smiling faces. Some look like it’s been years since the last time they saw each other and cannot stop talking and sharing all the things that had happened during that time. Others are already planning the next dinner. And of course there is still someone who has to work, but of course at that moment the motivation is not the highest of them all.

And then the moment comes. Everybody leaves Juventude and goes for a family dinner. Normally, the dinner is in the restaurant next to the Juventude, probably because of this, everybody starts to gather around way earlier.

When everybody is finally seated the dinner starts. Of course, as normally there are like 30 people or more on the dinner after the main meal, or even just after soup, the rotation party begins. Everybody wants to talk to everybody, for this reason the seats are changed, but conversations continues.

I remember my first dinner. We, the new EVS volunteers, had to make a presentation about ourselves for the people to know where they can use us, and after we had a dinner. It was my first week there, and of course I didn’t already know anyone, but it was really amazing. During the dinner, some people already started coming to me, with ideas where I could be a help, and I already started to feel like a part of a big family.

 Traditions are good. They make you feel like a part of something. And this dinner tradition makes you feel like a part of a family, even if you are far away from your real family!

Gi

   

JCV in Action

JCV in Action is a project of International Cooperation working with ERASMUS+. We receive and send EVS volunteers, participate in European youth exchange, training courses and seminars – sending participants, organize training courses and assist our partners in their actions. We participate and organize various actions of Erasmus+ focusing on building our volunteers and professionals competences as well as providing valuable learning opportunities to youngsters of our community. We work hard to build a great network and find projects to join.

This is how it sounds officially. Well, it is true, every single word, but I also think that JCV in Action is way more…

 Firstly is not a routine job. You cannot even plan your schedule as it can change like the wind and from nice breeze turn into a tropical storm. Normally, it is working on projects, but there are so many small details that I have never thought of and the worst thing is that those small details take a lot of time and without them the projects would not happen.

Despite that, it is very exciting job. You have to be very creative, good communicator, have good social skills (while reading other people) and also be very responsible and picky to all the details.

The creative part comes from promoting the youth exchanges that JCV in Actions organizes, to the ones they want to send participants to. From making a poster or a banner on the wall, posts in Facebook or other social sites to live presentations to volunteers for getting their attention.

Without good communication you will not have any partners. You have to know how to deal with people and how to ask for the things you need. Projects are partnerships between different organizations and you have to know how to make it happen.

  

Social skill of reading other people is a must for choosing participants for a one week training, youth exchange and, of course, EVS. It takes a talent to read the person during the Skype interview, because it is just a half an hour or something like that, and it is even too short to see though the first layers of masks that we put on, even in real life.

The responsibility is normally not only to your organization, but to all the partners as well. Sometimes we depend on other people and sometimes they depend on you, so it works both ways, and neither wants to disappoint or be disappointed.

And the most important thing is the details. While writing a project you cannot miss any detail. Because of one tiny thing the application can be not approved and this is not a solution. Everything has to be checked 5 times, all the counting and all the planning to make things happen.

That is why I love working in JCV in Action. It is never boring. It is extremely rewarding; it makes you feel that you are learning every day and improving all these things. You see how things work behind the curtain. It becomes easier to understand how lucky I am to be here and how grateful I have to be for all the people who worked on my EVS project and that my dream is now a reality!

Gi