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 15th of July and I couldn’t be 100% sure whether my EVS
placement was definitely safe until the 11th 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.
