Rock The Vote Events

February and March were very productive - we had three big Rock the Vote events.
Originally from the USA Rock the Vote is a campaign that encourages young people to vote in a way, which is fun, entertaining, and informative.
We helped with organising and it was a pleasure. What can be better than arranging concerts with local talents? Our role was to support the campaign with social media content, PR activities such as inviting politicians for speaking sessions and communicating with bands and musicians. A little summary of the events, which were especially useful in terms of the upcoming Westminster elections this year and NI Assembly elections in 2016:

24 February Rock the Vote at Mandela Hall

This Rock the Vote gig had been arranged in partnership with Queen’s Student’s Union and included several slots between the band sessions to talk with politicians from different parties.
But we had something to struggle with. It was amazing to get such a great local venue for the campaign, however Mandela Hall is for 1200 people and of course, we couldn’t fill it with such a big amount of visitors. Surprisingly, when our guests came, the size of the venue didn’t spoil a friendly ‘home’ atmosphere and the sound for the concert was perfect! Moreover we had enough space for talking sessions and live stream equipment. First we thought that young people will come just to listen to bands and maybe because of free pizza. But you should have seen those political debates during the slots! Visitors asked a lot of questions and tweeted every minute about who said what about different problems in Northern Ireland. So it is a big mistake to think that young people are indifferent nowadays.

Enniskillen Hustings event

It was another event where WIMPS crews and all young people from Northern Ireland were invited. In between we also visited several local events with voter’s registration forms to make registration for the elections easier for students, young workers, volunteers etc. This part of work can seem to be boring as what you need to do it is promoting the campaign and explain people why they should vote, but not for foreigners in Northern Ireland!
During those days we could learn about so many different opinions about local politics, society, and issues people are worried about, that it was worth it! Every time we were excited about watching what people were writing on the line ‘Citizenship’ as most of them have both – Irish and British ones.
Many people were very confident how to answer this question but some were really confused. Someone asked us if we voted in our own countries and probably our answers in some ways could convince them to do it. The election system is quite tricky in the UK and if you vote for a specific party it doesn’t mean it will work in its favour in the end. That’s why there is a reason to hesitate about voting. But at least the government encourages everyone to vote for what they want and you have a real voice compared to politic life in some other countries. Such activities we are involved in make it possible to learn a lot about this country and people. That’s what we were happy about.

The last event happened at Stormont in the Senate Chamber as a part of the Commonwealth Day Celebration on the 11th of March and it was entirely beautiful. A local singer and songwriter Katie Richardson accepted our invitation to be a headliner and there were two more nice young bands from Belfast schools. Several speakers – young people who actively participate in political life – gave a speech on what the Commonwealth Day means for them. (here pictures and videos from Stormont).

Photo: Paul Smyth

We recorded some songs with a phone. Enjoy!

Residential

Hi, today we will tell how we were arranging our first residential for girls, which basically means going away for a weekend together with a group of young people. There’s loads to think about beforehand and to organise - we called residential centres, organized transport and activities, wrote parent’s letters and filled in loads and loads of forms about orders, quotations and invoices… we are experts now!

But even the best planned residential can give you some surprises and the chances of parents consent forms getting lost increase with departure time getting closer, that’s scientifically proven!

But in the end we were all sitting in the bus on our way to Newcastle, looking forward to a nice weekend. And it was really successful! We wanted the girls to think about a story matching the project name: Away from Violence, Breaking the Cycle. Beforehand they’ve already decided to make a film about their story and they managed to create a storyboard plus the whole film within 4 hours!

It was great to see how much fun they had and how they were really getting into their roles. As soon as it’s edited you can watch it online, of course.

After this successful day they’ve had some free time to play football and meet other groups who were staying at the residential centre but we were also making some nice pancakes with Nutella and everything.

We managed to get at least a few hours of sleep before we started the next day with going to the town where everyone had some free time. While the girls were exploring the shops and amusements Newcastle has to offer, we tried “Mauds” ice-cream for the first time (really nice!) and found a lot of shells on the beach, furthermore the weather was wonderful throughout the whole weekend!

Back at the residential centre there were two climbing activities planned for us. It was good fun even though Irina and me are both a bit afraid of heights and only tried one of them. But our group was so brave, we were really impressed!

After all those activities and the short night everyone was sleeping in the bus back to Belfast but it seemed as if they’ve really enjoyed it and everything worked out well, that’s the best reward!

we are back

It has been a long time since we published the last post on our blog. 

We have to admit that it is not excusable especially because many people appreciated that we had an EVS blog. So it is time to continue. 

A lot of events have prevented us to write every Monday, however now we have something to tell you about. 

First of all we’ve been busy with selecting new volunteers. 

Public Achievement got about 75 CVs and spent 15 Skype interviews. Can you imagine? It is even tougher than entering University and looks like the most desirable job on Linked In. 


So, EVS is definitely popular and well known. But be sure, PA staff knows that it is a volunteering opportunity for young people from all over the world and not a fair of vacancies. It was so hard to choose, everybody who applied really deserved a chance to do EVS. Sometimes it was even confusing, as some people had described so much experience and knowledge that we were wondering – why do they need EVS? 

Of course we didn’t try to answer this question ourselves. You know better why you need this amazing experience. We were trying to choose people according to their CV, motivation letter, application form, feeling after the Skype interview and the main subject of the project. 

We just would like to say: don’t give up if you are not chosen again and again. It is definitely not your fault. Apply again and again. You will gain skills of being interviewed and you will be accepted for a project, which is personally about you. 

Yes, the selection process is very rigorous but it is only because of the amount of applications from very talented and experienced people. If you are young and not very experienced but your motivation about a particular subject is very high, believe in your success, you can compete with experienced people. EVS is about opportunity and organisations understand that they don’t choose a worker. It is about contribution – cultural, emotional and creative. So, just carry on applying and don’t hesitate to write long motivation letters and answer questions in detail. Although it makes the process longer it can help to know each other better. Remember that not robots will read your application but normal people who are interested in having a nice volunteer in their team.

This week we are going to tell about our role in organising local events. 

See you tomorrow,

Isabel&Irina