European Voluntary Service: My first month in Belgium

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

Sunday 9 October 2011

My first month in Belgium

Hello all!!!

This is my first entry, so there is a lot to write. I currently live in Mechelen, Belgium. I arrived here a bit earlier because I wanted to go on holidays first (I went to Tenerife :p). Mechelen is a beautiful city, full of friendly people and things to see. I've been coming back to Mechelen for the last 5 years and I always find something new and interesting to see. Lets move on to EVS now....
I started my EVS project on the 12th of September, due to some other volunteering I did here in Belgium. My first 2 days at YFU (Youth for Understanding) were packed with YFU database training. It basically means that they are trying to put all the data from papers and excel files into a joint database. So I did that for 2 days and after that I put some of the data in it. After that I collected data of some organizations we work with and put it in the database.
For the past week I've been working on cultural games for YFU. We offer 7 or more games to different youth organizations or schools all over Belgium. They usually take place in the morning (10-12) and afternoon (14-16). This week I've sent emails to this organizations with our offer for fall holidays. I'm waiting for their replay now! :)
I work with 4 other people in the organization: National director, inbound and outbound coordinators and an intern that works with schools. We all get along very well and joke around which makes it that much more fun. On the 15th this month we're going to Antwerp to present our organization to kids and students, who want to go abroad. It will be fun to see other people (EVS representatives are there too :)).

I've also been on the EVS arrival training from the 23rd-27th of September. It was quite the experience. I've met other EVS volunteers (there were 33 of us there). We played some intercultural games, got some of our EVS questions answered and just talked with each other. We are all meeting again pretty soon :D
I've also been taking Dutch lessons which is going good. It's not that big of a problem if you know German and English (I've taken lessons in Slovenia too).
For now everything is going smoothly. My host family is great and I'm enjoying my time here.

Till next time :))

PS: You can read more info about the organization and their work on: www.yfu.be

Petra xoxo