As a European Solidarity Corps volunteer, participating in her first volunteering project, the on-arrival training was a beautifully unique, fruitful, exciting and enlightening experience for me! The training took place during the first week of October in Prague, in a four-star hotel named "Hotel Golf" -and yes you guessed it correctly, the hotel had a vast golf course nearby:). We were a total of 38 volunteers from various countries, including: Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Ukraine, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Morocco and Egypt. We are all volunteering in various cities and villages across the Czech Republic such as Prague, Brno, Náchod (myself) and Tišnov. Despite it being the first time such a big crowd of volunteers attended the on-arrival training, and in spite of the age differences (18-28), everything went smoothly and we got along very well- creating friendships, exchanging ideas and experiences, shearing cultural differences and similarities and having constructive as well as light-hearted conversations! We even ended up creating a recipe -sharing group chat!
Upon our arrival at the hotel on Monday afternoon, we were welcomed by our three coordinators, two ladies and a gentleman. All three of them were absolute gems! Super positive and approachable, always smiling and warm, very well organised and coordinated, and always there to accommodate our needs and provide us with the necessary information and guidance. There were also two ladies from the National Agency, making sure everything is runs smoothly and offering us a training on the ESC volunteering processes and guidelines.
Every day was filled with activities, from 9.00 in the morning until 19.00 in the evening. The activities mainly included trainings on various topics such as: team-building skills, key competences and youthpass, mini project, assertive communication and conflict prevention, and wellbeing. We even created our own collage that represents our volunteering journey so far. At the end of the programme, we completed our own evaluation, providing constructive feedback to the organisers.
I thoroughly enjoyed the food at the hotel -there were always various options for everyone (including vegan and vegetarian dishes), and it was lovely to spend time and connect with the other volunteers over breakfast, lunch and dinner! Later on the evenings we would gather in the conference room and play board games! We had so much fun :)
Of course we had to explore the main city of Prague!! That was part of our "treasure hunt" game! We formed 6 teams, each team member volunteering in a different organisation here in the Czech Republic. It was a fun and relaxing experience, since we got to visit and experience several attractions such as, the "Charles Bridge" over the well-known Vltava river, the "Crawling Babies"-a sculpture by the famous Czech artist David Černy, the "John Lennon Wall", the "Astronomical Clock", the "Kabourek"- a grumpy, old water goblin statue hanging over one of the river streams, the famous chimney cakes and of course the main shopping street! Prague is truly magnificent and breathtaking! It was packed with tourists and visitors; especially over Charles Bridge! I will definitely visit Prague again, and go on the boat tour by the Vltava river! :)
P.S. In the picture, you will find me at the top right corner, wearing a red jacket ;)
Comments