Karolina is EVS volunteer in Spain, hosted by Plataforma del Voluntariado de Córdoba.
If you want to know why she decided for EVS, for Spain, what her tasks there are and what she misses.. Here you are, please read her story.. :)
My name is Karolina, I’m from Poland and I’m 25 years old. I live in Warsaw but now I’m doing my EVS project in Cordoba, Spain. I’ve done before Erasmus exchange for students in Granada (other Spanish city in the same region) and I liked very much Spain so I wanted to come back. I chose Cordoba because I wanted to know other place and the project of my host organization was interesting.
Before I decided to do my EVS I’ve been a volunteer a couple of times but there were only some events, It wasn’t continuous collaboration. This time I wanted to do something more and to be more involved in work of an organization. I wanted to learn new things, too.
My host organization is the Platform of the Voluntary work in Cordoba. It’s main goal is to help the people to find an organization where they can be volunteers and to help the associations to find the volunteers. We also organize some trainings for volunteers and organizations which help them to do their work better and more effectively.
My task in the Platform is to promote the European Voluntary Service among young people from Córdoba (from the city and the province). I prepare and give talks about the EVS, I help people to prepare their CVs, motivation letters, and application forms, I explain them how to find their host organization. I keep in touch with them by e-mail and help them if they have any questions. Additionally, I contact organizations from other countries and I’m looking for the active calls for the future European Volunteers. Apart from that I help in the daily tasks in the office, quite often we visit other associations and we organize some trainings in our office.
I’ve been before to Spain so this time Spanish customs and lifestyle didn’t surprise me at all. But I realized that the people, their way of life, and their attitude may be different, depending on the city where they live, even if we compare two places that aren’t so far away from each other (I mean Córdoba and Granada, two Spanish cities that I know quite well). Each place is different, even if they are inside the same country.
There are many differences between Poland and Spain, for example the weather (the most obvious thing), the character of people (Spanish people are more noisy than we are, in the first contact they are more open, they are more tolerant).
Cordoba has got very rich history so we can find here some really old monuments (for example from the Roman period) and we can see a lot of Arabic influence in the architecture, the thing that I like very much and that we can’t find in polish architecture.
I like very much Spanish cuisine but also I miss some polish food. I don’t mean only typical dishes but also some products that for polish people seem to be basics, like cottage cheese or parsley’s root.
My EVS project gives me the opportunity to learn a lot of things, the most obvious is the language, but is not only Spanish, in my daily work I also use English and sometimes polish (I gave a class of Polish to a boy who now is doing his EVS in one Polish organization). All of this experiences make me more conscious of my language abilities and allow me to develop them.
I had to overcome my shyness in order to speak in public about the EVS, I also learn to organize my work and to prioritize my tasks. I have also a lot of possibilities to get to know the culture, both participating in some courses (typical Spanish cuisine course, guided tours) and on informal way (for example: talking with Spanish people, spending Christmas with Spanish family).
After I come back to Poland I will look for the job, and I would like to use Spanish language in my work, I think that many things that I do and learn during my EVS will be useful in my future work. I wouldn’t mind if I found a job here in Spain, but I am conscious that because of the crisis and high unemployment rate it would be difficult.
I think that I would search for some kind of voluntary work, too. Maybe I could be a mentor of an EVS volunteer in Poland? It would be great!
I write a blog where I describe my EVS experience, I do it both in Spanish and Polish. https://lapolacawkordobie.wordpress.com/
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