EVS – Ületades hirme ja kasvades iseseisvaks

Töötan Tähe noorteklubis rahvusvahelise noorsootöö koordinaatorina ning meie organisatsioonis on vabatahtlikud EVS programmi kaudu peaaegu aastaringselt. Kui lõpeb üks projekt, on omamoodi kummaline tunne saata EVS ära. Olen ju näinud, kuidas nad on teenistuse ajal kasvanud, õppinud ja nii palju arenenud. Ja eks on minul samamoodi ärevus hinges, et kuidas ta uues või endises keskkonnas harjub ja hakkama saab. Septembri alguses saatsin nende tunnetega Berliini meie pika-aegse vabatahtliku Marina, kes jätkab seal oma õpinguid. Palusin tal kirjutada kokkuvõte oma projektist ja tahtsin ka teiega seda jagada, kuna see oli nii siiras ja armas. Loodan, et see annab ka teistele inimestele, kes töötavad EVS-idega, indu ja inspiratsiooni selleks imeliseks elumuutvaks tööks.

After seven months in Estonia, it is the moment to say goodbye. With this overview I will try to explain my feelings and emotion during these intensives months that have changed me.

Before  coming to Estonia I didn’t have so much information about this country, so, I was really exacting but also scary. Coming to Estonia was challenging for me – living in a cold country and very dark.  Anyway, I came  here and it was the best decision that I could choice.

I arrived 12th of February. It was like I imagined, dark and cold, everything it was snowing, and the sun didn’t shine. The begin was a little bit difficult for me. It was my first time living in other country and I felt so alone, but two days after my arrival I started to work and these feeling were despairing.

My first place work was Tähe youth center that is located in the city where I have lived during this time. Before starting to work there I didn’t know  youth center concept and during one month I was a little bit lost in workplace. I knew which was my work there, but know I didn’t understand the place in general. My function here was to teach art class to kids, and also help in other tasks. This was my first experience teaching, and it was really interesting, I didn’t speak Estonian, so my contact with the kids at the begin was some particular, but very funny, and I can say that I didn’t have any problem during this months communicating with youngsters. In this experience working with kids I have learned many things, one of them it is that talking with kids isn’t necessary. The language they speak, it is one universal language.

During the first month I was working just in this place, but in March I started to work in other two youth centers more, one of them in Melliste and the other one in Laeva, both of them in the countryside. For me know work in these centers have been very important for understand better Estonia, because the most important thing in this country it is the countryside, because, there a lot of people that live like in these kind of places and it is one part very significant from Estonia.

This was my first experience working and I learned many new things, like taking and being more responsible, now I know better how organize my time and work with people.  But I learned not just in the work, also my private life, because for first time in my live I felt alone, I was accustomed to be always with friends and family, but here during one month it wasn’t like that, but I survived that time.  I know that I will feel like that more times in my life, but it doesnt mean that I am lonely and I dotn have to afraid being alone. When I am doing new things, I have new experience that developes me.

Here, my most important experiences have been the on-arrival training course, where the trainers prepared me to my life here. There I had my first close contact with Riin (my mentor and tutor during this period). I met also other volunteers there. The last training we did all the time feedback and I really saw how was my life here, and I knew myself better. Really important was me also week in Rõuge, a little village in the south of Estonia, where I was working during one week in other “youth center” and I met Qati, one nice girl from Georgia. That week in  this place, it was for me very exacting, and I had the opportunity to put in practice my  knowledge, and the thing that I had learned in the other “youth center”, it was fantastic. Thank you for that opportunity!

I took part also youth exchange preparation, advance planning visit. In this week it was my first time collaborating in one project like that. And it was also my last experience in youth work field and I think so that the most important!  It was two weeks ago, in the “youth exchange” between, London, Spain, Estonia and Romania. Where we touch all kinds of discriminations problems, racism, homophobia… I met incredible people, and I had the opportunity to participate in this exchange, where we experimented all kind of feelings and emotions and it was a really good way to say goodbye to this fantastic experience that I have lived in this extraordinary country. Thanks to all you, that you do possible that person like me have the opportunity to spend time in other country living unforgettable experiences.

Marina Diaz Molina