European Voluntary Service

This is Pekarna's blog for EVS volunteers. Pekarna is a sending and hosting/receiving organisation for EVS volunteers and their volunteers (send and hosted ones) will keep you up to date about their work.

Evropska prostovoljska služba

Pekarna Magdalenske mreže Maribor te vabi, da se tudi ti pridružiš množici prostovljcev/-k Evropske prostovoljne službe (EVS) in odpotuješ v organizacijo po svoji izbiri v drugo državo EU. Smo pošiljajoča in gostiteljska organizacija EVS, ki mladim od 17. in do 30. leta za obdobje največ enega leta uredi vse podrobnosti za brezskrbno in povsem brezplačno delovanje v tujini.
Evropska prostovoljna služba je del programa ERASMUS + Mladi v akciji.

Za bolj podrobne informacije nas lahko kontaktiraš na: evs@pekarna.org



Thursday 30 April 2009

Debate on volunteer work

On the 24th, there was a debate in the Medical/Cosmetic school. Urska asked me to join them to talk a little bit about EVS and volunteer work in general.

I was the closing act you could say lol. I talked a little about what I am doing here at Pekarna and explained that I have a lot of freedom to choose my own projects, but that not everyone gets this opportunity. I let them ask me some questions and I was really happy with what they asked. I'm really used to these superficial questions or even once a comment like:,,What there aren't enough jobs in Belgium so you come take ours?'' (btw my answer to that once there ar enough jobs in Belgium and better payed too...i was annoyed). This time I got questions like: did you do other volunteer work before your evs?, what are the cultural differences between Slovenia and Belgium?, where else in the world have you been?...

I think there are some pictures, but I have to ask where they are and then maybe I'll upload one :p

Volunteer work


On Monday, 20th April 2008, it was the Global Youth Service Day. Pekarna and other organisations gathered in the city to inform people about voluntary work. Some workshops were organised, like making a wallet out of empty milk,juice,... cartons, painting on a bag, ....

There were also some EVS people present: Sarah from Brezice, Sveto and Ludivine from Lasko, Aurelie from Ptuj and of course I was there too. Our aim was to inform people that showed an interest in EVS. Sveto and Ludevine also made a movie about the day for the National television, but I don't have that video yet unfortunately.

It was a nice day, with lots of fun during the day. The closing event at Kibla didn't attract many people, but since it was a weekday, it was understandable.

Afterwards Sarah and I went to grab a bite to eat at Ancora and watched a movie. I didn't finish it, I was getting too tired...


Thursday 23 April 2009

Belgium presentation 3

After presentations in Brežice and in Črna na Koroškem, it was time for the tird one in the elementary school Martin Konšak.

I went there on Saturday, 18 April at 8.45. As an all out Belgian raised girl I am not used to working on Saturdays and it's programmed in me to have the whole weekend off. Getting up early, that means somewhere before 10 during the weekends, is just a nono. But hey I'm a good girl and I'll do what I have to do.

After listening to a presentation about healthy food, half of the audience was gone and the other half was given to me. I told them a little bit about Belgium and showed them a lot of pictures. When the presentation was done they could all take a waffle. I had made the waffles the day before and luckily I made enough, because on friday night around 11 I found out that I would have 30 kids instead of 15-20.

Afterwards the group fell apart in even smaller groups and I went with the group that was gonna make posters about Belgium (nature, people, 'de smurfen' aka Smrkci aka the smurfs ) and the EU in Brussel. While the kids were working on their posters I was making waffles and writing an interview down. They were very interested in the waffles and almost all of them wrote the recipe down.

After all of the group gathered in the dining hall to present the work they did that morning. A lot of them used the healthy food theme and others used something about Belgium. One group (one of the younger ones) made little smrkci, another one drawings of the houses in Gent and the group I was with did a version of the Belgian dance.

It was a nice morning and we didn't get everything done that we wanted to do, because we just didn't have enough time left.

Waar komen jullie toch vandaan?
Waar de smurfenhuisjes staan
Hebben jullie ook een eigen taal?
Ja, die spreken wij allemaal
Doen jullie iets wat wij niet durven?
Ja, want wij zijn echte smurfen
Dit is een lied met een leuk refrein
Jullie zijn groot en wij zijn klein


LA la lalalalalalalala
La la lalalalalalalala
La la lalalalalalalalalala

Thursday 16 April 2009

Belgium presentation 2

From the 14th till the 15th of April I was in Črna na Koroškem to give a presentation about Belgium in Center za Usposbljanje, Delo in Varstvo (center for training, work and care), which is a home for people with a disability.

The home has about 250 guests and has diffenent locations. I went to visit a few of them. There was the main house, the house for the kids, the houses for the adults who are living together on their own and the mountain hut. They really took me on a tour to show me all of the work they are doing.

It would have been interesting for one of my school assignments last year. It really showed how the organisation was working and that it has results. It basically goes like this: new arrivals spend their time in the main house where they get lessons and trainings in all kind of fields. They have music, singing, music, cooking classes and much more. All to prepare them to move them to one of the other locations where they have to take care of their own meals and house together with the people they are living with.

The center has a mountain hut with a view of the Topla valley. It's an amazing location, when you are there it's really like you are alone on the world. Every year a group goes there for a week, they take walks, cook for themselves, and in general just have a great time.

This picture is one of the views from the mountain hut. I only had my mobile phone on me, so there is a bit too much light, but I'm sure you'll see what I mean.

They also took me to a lake full of frogs, some fish and I even saw 2 turtles. It's a very commercial lake, where people go swimming in the summer. I just hope that dispite that the reptiles and fishes and every other life out there won't disappear over time.

One of the things I really wanted to see in Slovenia was a horse from Lipica. Guess what? Yes yes I got the chance to do this. During my tour, it was mentioned that CUDV got 2 horses from the Lipica farm and that we were very close to them. I told them that we should go and they agreed if we had enough time left. And we sure did. The horses are old, about 20 years, they still needed to be brushed and cleaned, but I didn't care at all. I didn't go as far as touching them, my reason is that they are too holy just yet :p.

After the tour and the drive there it was already evening. One of the guests gave up his room for me, so I had a room and a bed waiting for me to kick back, relax and sleep. At 6 in the morning I woke up because there was already a lot of activity in the hall way. It was a little bit too early for my taste, so I tried to stay in bed as long as I could, but I didn't sleep any more. At 8 it was time for my presentation. After the presentation we went to the kitchen and made some waffles. Around 12.30 I returend back to Maribor.

It was very nice to visit another beautiful region in Slovenia and I'm sure it will be a visit I won't forget any time soon.

Monday 13 April 2009

Family visiting

On the 4th of April my parents, aunt and uncle came to Maribor for a little vacation. While we were waiting for them, Petra and I made them a pie with cherries, put everything they had asked for in a box and waited for their call.

After a +/- 13 hour drive they arrived at their apartment. They arrived here quite hungry so I took them to Ancora. They all got a big pizza, but they couldn't finish it. It was just too much.

I was at work almost every day, but I went to them during the evenings to hang out or go for walks. On friday we went to postojnska-jama. If you want to know more about the caves, visit this website: www.postojna-cave.com. I was really happy they decided to go with my idea and go there, because it was one of the things I really wanted to do while being here. It didn't hurt of course that my uncle is a big fan of things like that and that they really wanted to go too.

On saturday, around 1 they left. This time it only took them about 12 hrs to get back to Belgium. They took all of the pics back home with them, because I forgot to plug the memory card in my computer, or rather I forgot to take my computer to them to get it done.

It was a very nice visit with lots of benefits for me and I enjoyed their visit. In June my parents will come back for a 14 days vacation in Terme Čatež (http://www.terme-catez.si/en/)and afterwards they'll drive me home.

The day I'll have to leave Slovenia is almost here and I'm not looking forward to it at all. :(

Friday 3 April 2009

Exhibition opening

On the 3rd of April at 20.00hrs it was the opening of the exhibition Ujeti by G. Pachla. The week days before I was quite busy with putting the pictures in the frames. And I had to do it again later, because when we moved them to hladilnica they all moved a bit down or up. It was a mess, but a fixable one.



On the day of the opening I went shopping for things I needed at the opening, like toastbread, bread spreads, drinks, chips and salty stickies. About an hour and a half before the opening we started to toast the bread. In Belgium we have these little pretoasted squares for receptions etc, but I couldn't find them here. We made triangles instead of squares and thanks to the grill-toaster Polonca gave me to use, it didn't take long at all.

In the beginning I was thinking that it won't be a success at all, but at the end of the evening I was very happy with the outcome. About 20 people showed up to look at the pictures, to talk, to drink and to eat.

For this exhibition and because I can right now I also want to thank everyone who helped me setting it up and making it possible. Thank you all!