SALTO Mid-Term Training for EVS volunteers

Me and Martin during exploration of  city.

Mid-Term Training is obligatory for every EVS volunteer, whose project is longer than 6 months. Luckily for me and Martin, we had an opportunity to participate in this activity. Thanks to that in December we went to Georgia’s capital- Tbilisi. The main goal of this training was to prepare us for “the live after EVS” what means coming back to our countries and old issues. Of course schedule was also full of some other nice things like – talking about experiences which we had during the project, sharing our memories of traveling in Caucasus and planning our future.

The World Map Made of Postcards

“The World Map Made of Postcards” is a project running by Dajana – A Polish volunteer.The main goal of this activity is to let children know more about other countries.  People from all over the world are sending postcards to CDF and than we are putting them together with Armenian translation on wall next to the map (As I can’t really translate them into Armenian, my coordinator Shushanna does help me with this). Children can check number on postcards and find this number on map and in this way discover where the country from which postcard has been traveling is. We received first postcard on September and now we have more than thirty. Most of them are from Europe, but we also have postcard from South Africa, Japan, Afghanistan Singapore, Canada and several from the USA. Now we are working on find some people from South America and Australia who can send us some postcards to our collection. We also have a blog for this project where you can check all the postcards we receive –http://wmmop.blogspot.com 

It is my pleasure to update this blog every time we receive a new postcard.

Dajana

Armenian volunteer in Poland.

   A day of travel and you are in the other place, you see other people speaking in different languages, not as you were used. And it’s fine. I already met many new people, learnt new things, I saw Baltic see, seagulls, it’s fantastic. I have my little flat in Sopot next to the beach. My flat mate is a Romanian girl. She is nice. She is a therapist. I am lucky with her: she is sharing with me her experience.

  People said that I’ll need months to adapt to the new environment, but it’s my third weak here and I feel like at home. It’s because of people working and living with me. Yes, they are so polite and friendly, I like it. I see I’ll have a huge experience in everything. And I think it’ll be gained through the challenges.  The first one is language: “English, please”, or “Ja ne razumem,  po poski” )))).  I have my polish classes, but children in the center also teach me Polish with the great enthusiasm.   I teach them English, but looking for ways to make them to be interested in it; they like games. At first we need understand each other; it’s the barrier that I am trying to overcome.  I have some ideas, but I must change them, improvise for their age, interests….. I have time to know them well. 

Some days before there was an international party. I liked it. The next time I am also going to introduce my country, people are very interested in it.  It’s nice to meet people from different countries. We discuss our national traditions, youth life, languages, and food. We discovered that “shal” (a cloth on the shoulders) is the same in Armenian, Romanian and German.  We are going to have a photo with our shals))))).  And food: I didn’t like to cook in the past, but now I do it every day, it’s interesting to try new things, we share our national dishes.  They liked apricot muraba and honey that I took with me from Armenia))).

  We are going to have our on arrival training in Warsaw, then Christmas.  So it’s only the beginning of my voluntary history.    It’s nine months traveling along the life and countries, which enriches my life with experience, people, friends…. 

 Anahit  Nerkararyan

The evolution of English and embroidery clubs.

English club for children, who I have the honour to run,  will soon celebrate one month anniversary. ;) Because of that we already have some information about this activity to share with you.  Well,  according to first idea English Club was meant to be twice a week, but so many children wanted to take part in it, that first idea had been converted to a second idea . So now there are two kinds of English Club - for children up to 7 years old once a week, and for children from 7 to 15 twice a week.  Together with smaller children during this month we were discovering the world of the English alphabet – on every meeting  children learned some letters and the name of one animal. Every meeting contains also drawing, colouring, cutting and gluing some pictures , so children have no possibility to be bored. English Club for older children is different, because they already know the Latin alphabet and some of them also have English lessons in school. During this month we have been working with such basics topics like numbers, colours etc.  I am doing my best to make them learn new words already during meeting, so there is a lot of repetition, cross-words, but also games which helps them arrange new words in their memory. My aim is to make them use some simple sentences in English during our lessons, so topics scheduled for this club are quite untypical, but I hope that results will be visible soon. Moreover, if children will be still as eager to learn English as they are now, I am planning to make with them some an English speaking play. So be ready for that! :)

I am also running embroidery club which take place every Friday and it is time during which children can exercises their fingers, but also have rest for mind thanks to relaxing music which is accompanying us. Now we are embroidering some characters from cartoons like e.g.  Donald Duck. It takes a lot of time for children to finish one picture, but they are patient and they don’t give up even if thread muddling over and over again. 

Dajana :)

"Together Be Stronger” (Action 3.1)

A multilateral youth exchange titled 'Together Be Stronger' took place in Batman, Turkey and involved young people from four different countries: Estonia, Armenia, Turkey and Georgia. The project implemented discussions, workshops and practical activities dealing with the subject of discrimination. The participants brought knowledge and examples of ethnic and minority discrimination from their own cultures, countries and social lives, which they shared throughout the project. They also did workshops on European citizenship, gave presentations for their respective NGOs and had a 'cultural night' where the particularities of each culture were appreciated.

SALTO On-Arrival Training (OAT) in Tbilisi, Georgia:

OATmeal

Back home in Norway we have this thing called oatmeal, which is basically a lot of oat* and subjected to boiling water. After a while, it becomes more a mass of porridge than individual flakes of oat with some water around them. When the two elements are brought together in a bowl they mix into a single, delicious mass.

OAT September 2012 in Dajana's opinion

On-arrival training (OAT) was organized for all EVS volunteers who are working in Caucasus in order to make them more aware of opportunities EVS is giving to them. It took place from 26 to 30 of September in Tbilisi. It was my first time when I have been in Georgia and also first time, when I met so many cheerful young people who are full of ideas. The people were absolutely fantastic and spending time with them was pure pleasure.