You missed me, or what?

Okay, that might came out a bit aggressive, but talking to an audience without a name can be stressful, guys! So hello, hello again! I’m still here, still in Italy and still in Faenza to talk you about all these amazing opportunities out there that they will give you the chance to travel and meet so many new cultures and people from all around the globe.

Moving to the main topic of today’s special article, we will have an amazing interview of an ex volunteer in Faenza, our city! Her name is Farida and she spent a wonderful year in Italy by joining the European Solidarity Corps! But let’s hear it from her…

*ME, MYSELF AND I*

Hello, I’m Farida. I’m from Azerbaijan and I’m 22 years old. I have Bachelor’s degree in American Studies. It’s very easy to become a volunteer. All you need is to create an account on the main ESC website and search for projects that suit your interests and skills. Also, it’s possible to apply for the projects that are shared by local youth organizations of your community. For example, I found this opportunity through  NAYORA which is considered the biggest Youth Organization and they were my sending organization. While participating at that project I started to search for new ones. Fortunately, I could find a new adventure in Egypt. Thanks to my experience in Italy, I could easily get accepted for that vacancy. I’m going to move to Egypt soon. During the little gap that I took between these projects I had chance to work with President Administration. It was a World Summit of Non-Aligned movement (International organization) that was hosted in Baku this year. I was selected as a Coordinator of the volunteers and was assigned to work with Cuban Delegation. P.S. the knowledge of Italian language made the work process much more easier, as not all Cuban delegates were fluent in English or Russian.

*WHICH PROJECT I JOINED*

I had my ESC project in Faenza, Italy. I was volunteering at PiGreco Apprendimento. My project was called “Learning by Teaching”. My duties were supporting study group of PiGreco, blogging about my ESC experience and creating some content for the social media of PiGreco. Also, I participated in some other short term projects like “Smartphone classes for elderly people “ and teaching English at Scuola Europa for some time. I think, Faenza is very comfortable and eco friendly place. Thanks to good location of the apartment I could easily roam around. Especially having bike made those short distances even faster. If I was in a different city/ town maybe It might have been more difficult to adapt to the new culture and country. Even though the language was understandable more or less, first six months I had problems in expressing myself. That’s why the language barrier for sure was somehow influencing my experience.

*MY EXPERIENCE IN A NUTSHELL*

I think, the key is being motivated before starting the journey. Once you are open to everything, you can truly experience the culture and get the most out of that opportunity. Emotions are always unstable, so I guess I have experienced a bunch of them until my project finished. But, at the end I was feeling that there’s nothing to do more. I’m done. Now, I’m remembering Faenza with nostalgia of course. It was definitely the right place and organization where I was supposed to be.