Merry Christmas!

We asked local EVS volunteers how they celebrate Christmas during their EVS year

Apply Now!

We are now receiving applications to our 2015-16 European Voluntary Service programme.

We have two EVS roles – one with our Away From Violence programme and the other with our WIMPS.
The placement period is 12 months and will start on 1 September 2015 finishing on 31 August 2016. 

Follow the link to apply!

Tips & Tricks for EVS applicants

There are already projects looking for new EVS volunteers from next autumn on and Public Achievement is also planning to open the volunteer recruitment process soon, so we thought it might be a good idea to give you some advice for your EVS application, if you’re interested in working as an EVS volunteer. We’ve already wrote something about the program and the process itself on the WIMPS website but apart from that there are some other things that might be good to know.

1.  Start as early as possible with looking for a project! It might take some time until you’re successful with you’re applications and a lot of organisations start their recruitment several months before the start of the EVS project itself, because there are certain deadlines they have to meet. Of course there are also last minute calls for volunteers but then you can’t be too picky anymore, so if you know that you want to do EVS – just start!

2.  Focus on the project, not on the country! Of course everybody has preferences and interests for certain countries but you should keep in mind that the project is what you’ll be doing most of your time and if it’s not interesting at all for you this will influence your EVS experience in a bad way. So try to be open and apply for projects you like in several countries, you can find nice people everywhere!

3.  Write a specific motivation letter! There’s no point in writing a general motivation letter and sending it to every organisation you can find – people there will notice it and in most cases it doesn’t make a good impression. Of course it’s more work to adapt every motivation letter to every project but there are always paragraphs (e.g. about your skills and experience) you can use for every single one and in the end the organisation wants to be sure that you really want to work for them, so take some time for it, it’s worth it!

If you decided to make a great email campaign anyway, put all your addresses into the BCC (Blind Carbon Copy) instead of the CC field, so that organisations won’t get an email with lots of other addresses to which you wrote “I particularly like your project. This is what I always wanted to do in my life”.

4.  Take some time for your letter of motivation and include your experience, skills, motivation, hopes, goals and what you can contribute to the project. Use the Europass form for your CV. 

When all CVs are similar it’s easier to look through them and find all items. Moreover you can make it online and keep it on your account whenever you need it.

5.  Don’t be shy to ask what your Skype interview will be about.

Sometimes it is hard to understand how it is to be on the other side – to speak a foreign language and have only a 15-minute chance to look smart and pleasant. It is hard to remember all necessary vocabulary very quickly and about everything they can ask you. And stay positive if you’re not successful at first, you’ll get more and more practice with every application.

Winter is coming...

Christmas is coming... But is it important for me?

No, I feel nothing when you are talking about 25th of December and it’s not a tragedy for me to stay in Belfast on this day because we celebrate Christmas in Russia on the 7th of January. However, it is not so popular anyway.

But I like this Christmas spirit in Europe and it’s a pleasure for me to participate in baking cookies, decorating everything, visiting the Christmas market and so on.

The most amazing part of preparing for Christmas is “collective labour” which motivates you to gather with friends/family a long time before the holiday itself.

Although there are a lot of American Christmas films I didn’t know about the tradition to hang up Christmas calendars. Isabel and PA’s intern from Spain Jennifer taught me how to make one.

Isabel also told me a lot about Christmas time in Germany. I was happy to help her and three other Germans with cookies but I think they will never stop producing new ones. That day we had had already 6 different kinds of them and the guys were going to make more and more. As I realised the Germans make and eat these cookies the whole December and mums and grandmums bake and bake every day. Usually there are 20 or even more kinds of cookies during Christmas time. Isn’t it crazy?

At least we made PA’s office a little bit nicer and ready for Christmas. So if you are a volunteer you definitely have some time and are able to do something sweet for everyone. Don’t hesitate because your colleagues are probably in a rush before holiday.

С Рождеством! (Merry Christmas!)

Ira

I didn’t know that it would be so surprising for everyone that Germans seem to be really serious about their Christmas cookies. For me it was always nice to make them during Christmas time, especially as a child you’re really excited about decorating them and without Christmas cookies it’s just no real Christmas time. That’s why it was important for me to have this tradition during my time in Belfast as well and I really liked sharing it with some people here, who didn’t know about it before. I think that’s an important and nice part of EVS – reflecting on your own culture and traditions, valuing them and sharing them with others - but of course learning about new traditions as well. So I’m really curious what I will learn about Russian traditions (e.g. on New Year’s Eve) and the traditions of all the other people I’ll meet during my time as an EVS volunteer.

In case you also want to try those famous cookies now I have two recipes for you, which most people here seemed to enjoy a lot.

Vanillekipferl

What you need:

250g  Flour

210g  Butter

100g grounded Almonds

80g  Sugar

2 teaspoons of Vanilla extract

+ icing sugar for decorating

What you have to do:

Mix all five ingredients, cover it with kitchenfoil and put it into the fridge for 30 minutes. Make a role out of it (diameter: approx. 4cm) and cut it into slices that are 1-2cm thick. Shape these slices like crescents and put them onto a baking tray which is covered with baking paper but make sure that they are not too close to each other. Put them into the oven (circulating air, 175°C) and bake them for 20 minutes, until they start to be slightly golden-brown. After that let them cool a little bit (for approx. 3 minutes) so that they aren’t too hot or too cold and cover them with icing sugar.

Orange-Chocolate Cookies (Orangen-Schoko Plätzchen)

What you need

For the cookies:

200g Flour

60g Cornflour

1 teaspoon Baking powder

100g Sugar

1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract

Grated zest of 1 (natural) Orange

125g Butter

100g Dark Chocolate

For the icing:

Icing sugar

Orange Juice

How to make them:

Mix flour, cornflour and baking powder and add sugar, vanilla, orange, egg and butter. Mix this, cut the chocolate into small pieces and knead it together. Then roll the dough, cover it and put it into the fridge until it is firm. (approx. 1-2h)

After that roll the dough out (not too thin!) and cut out cookies, e.g. with a small glass, a knife or special cookie shapes. Put them onto a baking tray and put it into the heated oven (180°C) for approx. 10 minutes until they are slightly golden-brown. Let the cookies cool a little bit and add some icing, if you want to.

Enjoy!

Fröhliche Weihnachten! (Merry Christmas!)

Isabel

Hi EVSers and future EVSers

We will continue to write this Public Achievement EVS blog, to give you an insight into what it looks like to work in this organization, to live in Belfast and to be an EVS volunteer.
We are going to post every Monday about different things. You will find out about a lot of tips and get some information about the EVS program, as we will involve other Northern Irish (and maybe not only!) volunteers in our stories.First, we interviewed each other to let you know who we are.

My name is Isabel, I’m 18 years old and I come from Erfurt, which is located quite in the center of Germany. But to be honest: no one outside of Germany seems to know this city – at least I always spend a lot of time explaining where it is located whenever people here ask me where I’m from.

I just graduated from high school in July and came to Belfast in September. I really like everything connected to music – singing, dancing, playing the guitar, concerts… but I’m also interested in multiculturalism and politics. As an EVS volunteer for Public Achievement I mainly work within the Away From Violence Project.

Why did you choose to work as an EVS volunteer and why did you decide for Public Achievement in Belfast?

When I was around 14 years old I decided that I wanted to spend a year abroad after graduating from school. As soon as I’d heard of the European Voluntary Service I knew that I wanted to do that because working in a social project, getting to know a lot of young Europeans (and people from outside of Europe as well!) and staying in a new country for one year sounded great. At the same time it is nearly for free whereas other gap year opportunities are normally really expensive, at least that was my experience. Furthermore I already worked as a volunteer, e.g. I did tutoring at the immigrant counselling of my hometown and helped young people with learning German and doing their homework, which was always a lot of fun and a great experience, especially because supporting integration and ethnic minorities is a topic I’m really passionate about and at the same time I had the chance to learn a lot about their culture. I like working with young people and I’m interested in politics, so Public Achievement, as an organisation supporting civic education and working with young people from a varied range of backgrounds, seemed to be a great project to spend my EVS year with.

 What were your first impressions of Public Achievement, Belfast, Northern Ireland or the life as an EVS volunteer?

Overall my first impressions were really positive, even though it was a big change, because for me it was the first time to live on my own, away from home. The people here, no matter whether it’s in the office, within the EVS community or on the streets, are really friendly and make you feel welcomed. It’s not hard at all to meet new people and there’s always something to do in Belfast. There are so many cultural events in the city and all the students from all those different countries seem to influence it positively. I really like the city – even though it’s not too big it never get’s boring and the landscape and nature in Northern Ireland are absolutely beautiful. I also feel very welcomed in the organisation and everyone really tries to include me into the team and gives me the opportunity to discover several topics, working fields and trainings.

 Were there things you didn’t expect when you applied or problems that occurred?

I actually didn’t expect that the whole application process would take so long – I was really happy when I got the message from Debs in March that I was accepted for PA’s EVS placement, at first I couldn’t really believe it because I applied for so many projects and actually I thought they would have a problem with my young age. But because of the changes with the new Erasmus+ Program it took really long until we finally got the EVS funding accepted in July. I was really nervous about that because in Germany you have to apply for university until the 15^th of July and I couldn’t be 100% sure whether my EVS placement was definitely safe until the 11^th of July. But in the end, everything went well and I always got a lot of support and updates from Public Achievement during the process. I’m really glad that now finally Irina is part of the organisation as well because it is really nice to work together with another EVS volunteer.

Hi, my given name is Irina. Actually, I used to be called with my name Ira (I still told no one about it because of the local meaning and associations).

I’m 26 years old, I’m from the south-west of Russia, Rostov-on-Don city and I’ve been living in Moscow during the last four years after my graduation.

I studied journalism in my hometown and then I worked at Red Keds – the advertising agency as a PR manager in Moscow.

Why did you choose to work as an EVS volunteer and why did you decide for Public Achievement in Belfast?

I’ve never tried volunteering before but I knew that for many young people in Europe and the USA it’s a chance to discover a new country and different activities after school. We don’t have such a gap year in Russia but it would be useful to take over this tradition.

As I was working more than 4 years since I graduated I wanted to find something like an internship in a social project, where it’s possible to apply my knowledge about media and communication.

The EVS program looked like what I was searching for. To be honest I sent a lot of emails to many organizations in different UK cities but I was very selective and chose only projects I would like to work for.

I knew about the situation in Belfast and about its problems a little bit and to me this place seemed very mysterious and interesting to explore. Also I felt that Belfast is a nice city with its own culture, arts, music.

When I saw Public Achievement’s WIMPS project on the EVS database I just thought that it’s such a good idea for Belfast. In this city people really do care about their rights and social problems. I was very interested in discovering PA’s experience and I hope I will be useful for this project.

What were your first impressions of Public Achievement, Belfast, Northern Ireland or the life as an EVS volunteer?

I’ve spent less than a week in Belfast but I’ve been surrounded with such friendly and cheerful people.

First, I met our coordinator Debs and Isabel who had come two months before. They did their best for me to feel comfortable in Belfast and in the organization. I thought the first days would be full of stress but I feel happy here.

Were there things you didn’t expect when you applied or problems that occurred?

It could be expected that there would be problems with a visa as any type of visa, except for travel one, is a headache for all Russians. I thought that I would have a lot of troubles with Moscow authorities since some necessary documents take two weeks or even a month to take out. 

But problems unexpectedly came from the British Council. I had to show a certificate of sponsorship at the application center and The BC has been issuing this one during three months. Probably, there were serious causes for it.

I thought everybody in PA was going to hate me. Even though it was obvious that it wasn’t my fault I guessed no one would like to carry on volunteer’s documents for so long. But Debs encouraged me to be patient and she did a great work pushing the process. I can’t express how I appreciate this support.

The new EVS volunteers

Hi there!
The next EVS year at Public Achievement has started and therefore there'll be two new volunteers again to keep this blog updated. The first one is me, Isabel from Germany, and the second one will be Irina from Russia, but she still has to wait for her visa. So let's keep our thumbs pressed that things will work out soon and we can welcome her in Belfast as well!
I think there're some great months to come!Isabel

I Came, I Saw, I Conquered

I don’t know how to begin this story, but it is one worth telling. I want to get you in the right mood, but let’s just start from the very beginning:

From the day I was born I have been fascinated by heights. Always looked up to the sky and saying to myself “I want to be up there”. Never been afraid of climbing the highest trees or putting myself in danger – just to feel the fresh air up in the treetops. I have always had the eager to climb mountains. High Mountains. This was one of the reasons I wanted to come here to Northern Ireland – the land of Mountains. I had heard way back home stories about the Mourne Mountains and Slieve Donard – the giant peak. I actually choose this place in the world before the chance of going to Nepal and the Himalaya mountains to live with the Sherpas. Due to my hard work here in Belfast, my climbing dreams have been put on a hold and I’d spend the autumn looking dreamlike at the big mountains surrounding Belfast from my windowsill; but one day when winter started to turn to spring I said (once again, aloud to myself) “Enough is enough, let’s climb a mountain”.

Photo by Samuel Henning.
The first part of the climb.

It was a normal day, not too sunny, but not too rainy. I woke up early enough to have time to do something with the day and not just end up staying in bed watching “The Vampire Diaries” as normal. I said to myself (this is totally normal): “Let us seize the moment and let us not waste it today with just words and no action”. This day was the day; I was about to climb CAVEHILL. Don’t you be frightened of the word ’hill’ cause this is just a humble name given by someone who didn’t want to reveal the truth to the rest of the world of its gigantic size.

I started my journey from base camp with my small expedition of viking friends whom I had called in just for this special moment. I had heard before from working collegues (Bronagh, thanks for telling the truth) that it is going to be a tough journey on our way to the top. We need to have courage and don’t loose the hope, but keep in mind that this was something that I had been preparing for a very long time, so I wasn’t about to give up that easily. We started off with fully packed packbags and a detailed map of all the routes you could take to the top; some more dangerous than others. It was a hard choice – should we take the green, blue or red track. We choosed the green one, the longest and the hardest.

My cicerons Sam and Louise, all the way from Sweden. 

At the beginning it was a pleasent walk. We started off telling old hiking stories (don’t want to tell you too much, but it includes a wolf pack and a sausage) and had a good laugh. What we didn’t expect was the dramatical weather change. From being such a good day, it started off being really windy and as we came higher up on the mountain we started to struggle more and more with the wind. I was afraid, I have to admit, but ”Skam den som ger sig” as we say in Sweden (translated ‘shame on she who gives up’) and I took one meter at a time with the help from my stave.

The wind came and the wind left and after a couple of hours we could finally see the top of the mountain – McArt’s Fort. At this point I was so tired that I begun to cry of exhausting and happiness. My friend Sam (yes, as in the Lord of the Rings) helped me up on my legs again and gave me some strenght to carry on.

Photo by Samuel Henning.
The calm before the storm.

All of a sudden it started to rain. But not a normal rain. No, this was like the Niagara falls. I lost track of time and space, but most of all I lost my cicerones. I walked and walked without seeing anything cause of all the rain, suddenly I boomed into a large figure. I was afraid. Could it be Finn McCool? No, but it was definitely a man. With muscules. I could see his face now. I recognised it. It looked exactly like Channing Tatum. Weird, but true. And he lifted me up, carried me to the top and then disappeared. The rain had stopped and I found my friends sitting beside me. They were worried. I asked them if they had seen ”The tall musculous half naked man that looked just like Channing Tatum”. They hadn’t. Too bad, but they believed my story. And we had now entered the top. And we were stunned by the view. And this moment was a perfect time for me to proclaim the famous words: 'I came, I saw, I conquered’

 

Photo by Samuel Henning.
"I came, I saw, I conquered"

Even though the trip had been a hard one, struggling with wind and rain, it was all worth it for the view. To see Belfast from above was a real pleasure and a memory I will bring with me for a long time. We couldn’t stay for too long because of the lack of oxygen. A choice we had made to climb without oxygen masks. The way down was easier. After 20 hours we were safe on the ground again.

 

Photo by Samuel Henning.
The giant peak - McArt's Fort

And this was my story of the journey up to Cavehill. It was not an easy one to tell, but it was neccessary. This might be told by my children to their children, and their children will be telling the story to their children. And this might be going on in eternity. And I will not be here then; but my story will be told. The story of how a very brave Swedish girl climbed the gigantic mountain of Belfast, with her friends, to show the world that even small people can make a different and that their stories need to be told as well.

*Some material in this story might have been exaggerated for dramatical effect.

Yours truly,
Emelie