My journey for discovering

Dzien dobry, everyone! My name is Vicente Vicario, I am 23 years old and I come from Spain. First of all I have to say that becoming a volunteer here in Poland is a dream coming true and I couldn’t be happier right now. The city, the volunteers, the kindergarten where I work and the STRIM organization are all awesome and supported me since day one. Now that you see everything from a really positive view, I will tell you that not everything is easy in this journey. Every day you face a lot of different challenges and you have to be brave enough to overcome all of them. Some might be little things, like losing the bus that goes to work and getting late to work or big things, when for instance your phone dies and you are on the other side of the city and you don´t speak Polish to ask for directions. However, all of them make you tougher, smarter and way more experienced to deal with everything in your life.

Leaving the “negative part” aside, I will tell you that talking about my work also is talking about my interest in learning new methods and strategies for teaching. Since the first week I started noticing thousands of differences in between schools here and in Spain and I simply fell in love. In my kindergarten they believe that freedom is one of the main tools for the kids to learn by themselves, they work without pressure from the teachers and you can see them evolving and growing in every aspect. All materials and games are at the reach of children’s hands for them to use it.
In the end my last thought about being a good volunteer or better said, for you to feel comfortable in the project is to remain active in every possible initiative, to have motivation for everyday tasks and be open-minded to accept the culture and make others accept your differences. Of course, you have to believe in what you are doing and have enough self-confidence to consider yourself as an important part of the project.

Anna, the teacher

Working with Vicente is very satisfying. He is always cheerful and smiling. Children love him and he has a lot of patience for them.  All the time he teaches kids new Spanish words and they teach him Polish. Vicente is very helpful  and willing to help children and teachers. He has a great contact with children.  Working with him is a pleasure.

I would like Vicente to continue working with children in the same way as now.  Maybe we can learn more Spanish games and songs during this time.  He is currently helping us to organize a meeting for Mothers’ and Fathers’ Day. Parents will have an opportunity to get to know him better.  Together, we will also organize a family picnic next month.

Cherishing the differences

Hello! I am Jennifer and I am from Spain! As an EVS volunteer I would like to share with everyone how great it is to have this experience. For the first time I heard about this program when I was in Poland last year as a tourist. I met a couple of volunteers and they told me about this program. After  working in Spain for a year I took a break and decided to make a change in my life. Then EVS came to my mind and I thought that it could be exactly what I needed.

After checking for information and applying for some projects it was clear I would be working in the country that I had already visited. I came to Krakow and joined the ongoing project, the volunteers had been here for 4 months. It was convenient for me to join the project for a shorter period especially with a warmer weather, which was great!

It has been a wonderful decision! I am meeting a lot of new people, new things are happening every day and I am opening my mind in an unbelievable ways. I love living abroad and being involved with Polish culture in so many levels. As I work with children I can see how their education system functions from inside. I recommend EVS to everyone, not only for all fun they are going to have, but also for their impact in the community.

It is funny to remember how surprised I was when I first arrived in the kindergarten. I was surrounded by 18 blonde blue-eyed children looking at me while their teachers told them “good morning”. Now the main thought I have most of the time is how they behave so well. I think the children are very polite and independent. In Spain I wasn’t used to see kids doing everything on their own. Here they have to change their clothes including the snow boots every time they go to the garden and come back. And it was strange for them to see me trying to help, as their teachers were not doing it.

Children in my kindergarten are very calm, they don’t shout and rarely cry. At lunch time once they finish eating, everyone takes his or her plate and says thank you while tidying up and cleaning everything. Kids are so sweet and they hug me everyday, even though I usually work in other groups. I love them. 

Of course on the other side of this experience stand teachers I work with. At the beginning I remember myself thinking that they didn’t pay a lot attention at the children, kids did everything on their own and weren’t scolded or punished. Then I realized that it was not necessary or needed, as they learnt in a different way than Spanish kids and they already knew how to do many things without help.

I am still trying to discover my role as everyday I learn new things. Each volunteer is different, what I didn’t expect to face was the language barrier. However with time, everyone can manage using body language and signs. I thought I would have more responsibilities but my teachers are wonderful and help me with everything to help me adapt and feel comfortable.

I would like to participate a bit more in teaching process. From upcoming months I want to make memorable change in their lives or something they could remember even in some years. Although it can be a difficult challenge I am motivated for it. Also I have started to understand some things, because maybe am I getting used to the Polish language or maybe because of the context. In the future I would love to understand more of children’s funny and precious moments.

Agnieszka, the teacher

Working with Jennifer is a real pleasure for me and for the rest of the teachers. She is like our shadow waiting for our requests and we don’t need to ask again. Not only does she help with everything with a smile, but also she makes us smile due to her good sense of humour. And this is exactly what we expect – the helper who is not afraid of challenges and the person who we really like to spend time with.

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Collecting memories

Let me be banal and tell you about the background of our numerous meetings, after the time which spent together with the joyful and boring common memories, that I am Lasha from Georgia.
Hello.
Since October of the last year, I have been working as a volunteer with children of the age between 3-6 years old in Krakow. In this institution it is the only class of such age in this category and obviously we carry out a lot of activities during the day, as this is not a typical kindergarten. In short, we are creating and learning new things. All of this is largely the merit of the teachers,  working with whom really delights me every day. With Sylvia I learned a lot of English children’s songs. Thanks to them, now I can easily count from one to ten in English and repeat list of the colors of the rainbow in few seconds. If not Iza, I would never have done anything unimaginably beautiful as the pencils box from ceramic. Christmas toys and paper airplanes really fly well considering that they are made  of the paper. And if not Anya, I will tell you with confidence that I would have never played children songs in Polish without knowing what they really mean. However they sound really cheerful and sometimes I think that it is moe funnier for me than for children.

To sum up, it is all very cool. I am glad that I am here now, working in Krakow and in a wonderful place with amazingly positive and friendly people. What I do not like in Poland is snow, which does not help to make even a snowman  and “good food” that is not as good as in Georgia. (Do not be angry, every Georgian and everyone who has been to Georgia will agree with me).
So… Everything is going good with me, sometimes I am happy, and even more happy. I have chosen this project to create more happy moments, adventures and memories. And most importantly, it makes me happy that children know how lucky they are when they met an amazing person like me and my aim is to make them think the same at the end of the project.

Sylwia, the teacher

Lasha seems to be a very responsible person. He always asks what he can help with and is open to try and experience new things. This is a very good sign as we talking about a volunteer. The first meeting with the kids was for him a little bit hard, I guess, because two children (girls) said that they were afraid of him and started to cry. I remember that Lasha said : ” that’s ok” and was not worrying about the future. He was right. Kids quickly accepted him and they enjoy spending time with him, including these girls. I can say that all the kids really like him.
I think it’s because of Lasha’s patience and his gentle nature. I hope that Lasha is going to teach the kids some songs and simple poems in his own language. That would be great! We also started a new project called: “Flat Janek”. While Lasha was in Georgia for Christmas he introduced this project to some teachers and some group of kids and he is going to talk about it with our kids when winter vacation is over and the kids are going to be back to Dom Kultury.

Canarian adventurer

Hola!! Dzień dobry! My name is Leila and I m from Gran Canaria, Canary Islands (Spain). I am doing my volunteering project in Primary School nr 90. I work two days peer week in the playroom “świetlica” and 3 days in the class 1°B. When I am in the class I help my teachers Izza and Kasia. I don’t speak Polish, but the kids are always teaching me new words (at least they try).

I really like the interactive teaching methods that are used in my school. In Spain during the whole lesson kids sit and they should remain silent. Here kids go to the carpet to read, do crafts… It is so dynamic! In the świetlica I work with Kasia, Barbara and Edyta. This room is where children that do not have lessons wait, and usually there are more than 40 kids at the same time. They have a lot of toys and boards games to play, however teachers always have new activities for them.

My school is an integration school, which means that children with special needs like autism spectrum disorder (ASD) share class with the kids without special needs. Additionally they have special teachers, psychologists and pedagogues.

It is the first time that I work with children with special needs and I have learnt that they have a special sensitivity. My goal is to continue learning and growing. I also want to show my children some of my culture, for example carnivals.

Izza, the teacher

I started working with volunteers four years ago. I had a lot of trouble communicating in English. The first volunteer I worked with was from Italy. We all loved Georgie. Since then a lot has changed in my life and cooperation with volunteers. The main thing is that I started an active English language course. For us the most important expectation from Leila is building good relationship with children. Being open and flexible, not getting offended are very important. It is crucial that she communicates her needs and gives us clear signals if everything is alright or something needs to be discussed.

We are happy with Leila and want her to come out with initiative and infect us with her enthusiasm.

The architect of future

Hello from Krakow! I am Antonietta and I live here since this wonderful project started in October! I am from Napoli, south of Italy. I am not used to all this snow, but I love it! I am an architecture student and currently I am preparing my thesis. I wanted to do more in my life so I was looking for something different and ERASMUS+ gave me the chance to be a volunteer in a kindergarten.

For me the best surprise was the way children were treating me: I mean I was a stranger for them, a different person, somebody that they didn’t know and for the same reasons they were always trying to talk to me, to interact with me and make me a part of the activities. I think also that it depends on their age: they are 3-4 years old, old enough to talk and interact, to be independent for the most common things as eating or undressing, but without any prejudice and experience about the foreigners: every thing is easy, everything is Polish for them!

For sure I was expecting less independent children, as I am used to think that kids at this age are always and fully in their parents hands, without any chance to do something by themselves. I am really impressed by the education in Poland and for sure I will try to do the same!

I think I will try to share more about Italian culture. Especially with older children, that are more curious and for sure know more about the world and the countries: sharing differences, the specific qualities of both counties and underlining the common things, all the connections between; teaching them about the beauty and the positiveness that we can feel.

Monika and Kasia, the teachers

In our kindergarten the adventures with STRIM volunteers began a long time ago. Although we are used to have a volunteer in our kindergarten, we still had a lot of curiosity and expectations to meet Antonietta and Ellie. The first impressions were very positive, both us and the volunteers integrated very quickly. There was no time for a shy atmosphere due to the specifics of work in kindergarten – there is always something going on and you don’t have time to get bored!

Our volunteers are certainly very helpful, they get involved in everything that we ask them and that is what distinguishes them. In addition, they easily make contact with children. After some observations we noticed that children liked them too and wanted to spend time with them playing games and making conversations. Ellie and Antonietta are ambitious – they have already learnt a lot of words in Polish and want to continue improving it.  We hope that they will like working in our kindergarten and will stay with us until the end of their stay in Poland. We hope that this cooperation  will be interesting and useful for all of us. We try to make them feel good and safe in our group. And maybe sometimes we are a bit overprotective, for example we constantly ask if they are hungry and we want to feed them. But as they are not complaining, we guess they are enjoying it too!

Going back to the roots

Salut! My name is Thibault Clair and I am 22 years old. I grew up in a small campaign in France and when I was 17 years old I moved to live in Lyon. I studied Management and at the same time worked in a shop. I graduated just a few weeks before coming to Poland.

I decided to come to Krakow because my grandfather is Polish and he is from this city. I wanted to discover his city, his culture and at the same time live new experiences and discover people from other countries. That’s why doing EVS in Krakow is perfect for me.

I have been in Krakow for almost 6 months now and I have not stopped having fun and meeting great and very interesting people. I am a volunteer in two youth centers in Krakow. I do a lot of various activities with kids, such as playing football, watching movies, doing plastic art, cooking together… I spend a very good time with them and at the same time I have a lot of fun!

Before coming here I was afraid that I would not be able to communicate with people in my youth center and my kids as I did not have a good level of English or Polish. However, I quickly improved my English and I managed to be understood by young people.

Since the beginning my role in both youth centres was what I had expected it to be. Before coming here I hoped to become close with my kids and do lots of activities with them, teach them words in French and share some things about my culture. That is exactly what is happening, so it is really cool! One of my goals in this project is to try to speak some Polish with kids, because most of them don’t speak English and I am not very fluent in Polish yet. Regardless, I improve little by little, so every day my contact with kids evolves.

Katarzyna, the teacher

From the beginning Thibault seemed to be a person involved in what he does, open and kind to the others. And so he is. Thibault was a little shy, which was probably due to the language barrier. However it is no longer a problem for him. He is making amazing progress in learning Polish, which really impresses everyone.
Thibault is a cheerful and nice person, who likes to talk with people, which is very helpful in contact with children. He quickly caught contact with our kids. They like him very much, they do a lot of things together and when he is gone, they always ask about him. He is also a very helpful person, who shows his own initiative in various activities in our center.
We are very pleased that we have him in our youth centre.

Pursuing Equality

Cześć! Γειά!

My name is Aria, I am 25 years old and I am coming from Greece.

I have graduated from the department of Preschool Education and my love for children is the main reason why I am doing this EVS in Poland.

Before I came here I was a volunteer in Thessaloniki Pride, and my fight for equal rights will never stop. I have studied a lot about homosexual and transgender children in school, about the discrimination and the bullying, and how to protect them from being left on the margin. My dream is a society that would be friendly for everybody, and the change will start from the education.

My project here in Krakow is working in youth centers, where we have children from troubled families. The age range is from 6 until 18 years old. Kids are coming to us after school and our job is to help them with their homework, cook dinner and play with them.

In the beginning what really surprised me was the fact that those kids were so grateful! What I mean is that all that they wanted (and still want) is love! If you give them a hug, if you talk to them or just smile, they appreciate it like it is the biggest and the most vulnerable gift. Language was a big challenge for me in the beginning, but our will to communicate with each other made everything easier. Some broken English from their side, some broken Polish from my side and a lot of body language do it.

And the challenge for me was working with teenagers. That was something I had never done before and frankly, it scared me in the beginning. As the time is passing and I am going through the 6th month of working here, I can say that I have found my way with them. Before I came to Krakow, I knew more or less what I would do. I really love my job and I feel fulfilled when I know that I am offering my help to those people who really need it. One of my goals for the next 6 months is to manage making my relationship and my communication with kids better!

Ana, the teacher

My impressions about Aria from the beginning were very optimistic! I like to get to know new people, I can always learn from them something new. From my side I was very glad that she came to us. She is very warm, kind and modest person and for children from our youth center it is very important. They caught connection very fast. I think that for children this is a good opportunity to not only learn different language but also to know more about a different culture. They are learning also to be more open for people from all over the world. Also they have opportunities to help people, help Aria to understand our traditions, know better our city and country and in that way not only improve their own skills but also help her feel good in our youth center and country.

It is hard for me to talk about expectations, because she has already caught connection with children, what is really important to me. Aria is helping children with different things not only in lessons, but also during daily tasks as workshops in our youth center. Therefore, she is fulfilling my expectations. I only want that she continues what she has been doing from the beginning.

Growing with youngsters

Sveiki! Cześć!

My name is Irma Bagdonaitė and I am a volunteer from one of Poland’s neighboring countries: Lithuania. I come from a small city in the middle of Lithuania, Kėdainiai. I am actually pretty young, I turned 19 this year. Additionally I graduated from school this year and decided to have a break from studying, gain some experience and then continue my studies in either IT engineering or English education.

When I first got here, I didn’t know what to expect to be honest. My mind was open and I just hoped that I would he able to handle all that was expected from me to do. The first surprise in the project was that I was assigned to two youth centres at the same time, which was nice. I wasn’t too much surprised by the children’s behavior or the way the teachers were treating me – I was surprised by the fact that I felt like at home. It made me realise that I am closer to home than I first thought.

At first, in both centres I had nothing to do and that was very frustrating. Although I wanted to get involved in so many things, I knew that first I needed to learn how to interact with the children. Therefore I suppose at the beginning I was more of a student, but later on I became a lot more useful, which makes me very happy. To be honest, I didn’t expect anything like that, but I am still glad that it turned out the way it did.

I decided to make this sort of simple for myself – I have only a few goals in my mind right now, but all of them are very important to me. I want to learn more Polish, not only so I can speak to the locals, but so I can help children a lot better than I am able to do right now. After learning about the English education in Poland I have found another goal: to teach English as many children as possible. Maybe this way they could also love this language just as much as I do .

 

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Ola, the teacher

Irma is a shy person, so in the beginning it was not easy, but now everything is going in the right direction. She is eager to engage in working in the kitchen, cooking and preparing meals with the children. This gives opportunity to get better in contact with each other. Children like her a lot. Irma is happy to help children with their homework in English and in their daily activities. She has many ideas for art activities with children, so I hope that we will continue in this way. And we will get to know her country and culture better.

Kamila, the teacher

I have a very positive impression of cooperation with Irma. She is smiling, happy, with a lot of youthful enthusiasm in her. She likes working with children, and children like her. We want our children to learn about other cultures, learn respect and tolerance for differences. We also want to show our traditions. It is a challenge for us.

First beginnings

Hallo! My name is Hannah and I am a 19 years old German girl. It is the first time that I am living far away from home in Krakow and making my first awesome working experience in the Kindergarten 79.

To be honest I was having so much thoughts about my first days at work, like how work and tasks would be, especially without me speaking any Polish or having much experience with working with children. So it was a very pleasant surprise for me to come to work and have from the first second all children around me welcoming me without caring that I could not answer to all of their questions. And also in the next days and weeks their affection did not fade away.

Before I started my EVS I was never really sure what my role would be like. In the beginning there were moments when i was kind of unsatisfied with work because i did not really feel useful. But I have made up my minnow and started to see my work from a different perspective. Although I am not a teacher and children probably don’t need another one in their class, I can still be useful in another way. My role is something in between children’s friend and their teacher, I can share my culture with them and just be an addition to their daily life in the kindergarten. With this role I am super happy and satisfied.

My goal for the upcoming months is to keep my joy of working with children as high as it is right now. To achieve it I am planning my first activities with children to present my country and share my culture. I also want to try to put more effort in learing Polish, so I can finally understand all super interesting stories children are telling me every day and of course to talk more with my teacher.

Jola, the teacher

Hannah is an open and energetic young woman. She has a unique style which makes her unique and so special. She has a very good contact with children and they get along very well. Hannah is very kind and she is always willing to help. She is learning Polish, which hopefully will make our communication better. We hope that upcoming months will be productive for all of us. We want to learn more about Hannah, her country and culture, as well as share ours with her.

Children’s favorite guitarist

Hola a todos! My name is Joao, I am 24 years old and I am from the south of Spain, Seville. I studied Sport Science at the University and during that time, I was also working as an Animation Monitor in my city. Since October I have been a volunteer in the Kindergarten 38 in Krakow with children of 3 and 4 years old.

Spanish flag in progress

In my first week here I felt a little bit lost because everything around me was so new. When I arrived in the kindergarten, I was afraid of the language barrier with the teachers and the kids, but surprisingly, they received me so well and with big smiles. At the beginning, I was also surprised that the children were eating four times per day and that they had to attend a lot of different classes such as English, Physical education and dance class.

Team work is the best!

Afterwards, children began to interact with me more and to get closer. Moreover, I could organize activities about my native language and about my culture… I could even teach them songs with my guitar! Actually, more or less I expected that this was going to be my task here, but I always try to help as much as I can in my kindergarten and, since I like children, I try to be funny, responsible and close with them… I am willing to improve step by step.

So far, I think that I have had very many good experiences both in my kindergarten and with the rest of the volunteers. I will keep improving my skills by having a good and positive attitude and I will be willing to help in everything that teachers ask me. Also, I will be involved more in my tasks, always trying to keep a good work environment and live this experience to the fullest.

Ewelina, the teacher

Joao is a very nice and creative person. He has a very good contact with kids and they love him very much. He is always involved in our work, helping out during the meals, artwork, and dances. Joao always does things with us. For Christmas we will have a theatre play with our children and in the end of the play Joao will play the guitar. He is also teaching kids words, numbers and songs in Spanish. Our director was in our lessons and she told me, that Joao was one of the best volunteers we have had in our kindergarten. I hope he enjoys this experience as much as we do and keep making good memories in our kindergarten.