EVS TESTIMONY - The first weeks of the project ACT - Action Change Things have passed. Our volunteers Marta Aparicio, Inés Peinado, Elisabet Clariana and Belen Hafner have already completed the preparation, adaptation and part of the training planned in the project. We tell you how the first weeks of this project went.

During this time, the volunteers have begun to explore their new city and the new culture, both with the help of the management team and the mentor and on their own. They are also creating their own group of friends with more volunteers and Erasmus students from Craiova.

Our three volunteers have met with all the partners with whom they are going to work, have visited the schools and have had a first approach with some of the students and to create connections with them. From that moment, they began to plan and carry out activities with them twice a week, focusing, for now, on cultural and language exchange.

Also today they have started the English club, which will take place every day until halfway through the project, and then two or three times a week, depending on the students.

In addition, the team has participated in a training session in Baia de Fier, where he attended workshops on personal development and evaluation, methodology and activity planning. On the other hand, the calendar of activities becomes increasingly active in schools. Our volunteers and the rest of the participants have implemented activities related to the English language, team building, carnival festivities, the stimulation of creativity and cultural exchange.

In high schools for the first meeting with the students, they met the students, presented them with the objectives of the project and the activities, allowing them to choose their favorite clubs, to involve them in the organization of activities to encourage their attendance. Already in the second meeting they implemented activities related to cinema and acting skills.

They also delivered English clubs for some children of different ages every day for almost two weeks, when schools were closed by the end of the semester and once a week during school hours. The volunteers attend group tutoring sessions once a week, where they carry out their reflection and personal development activities.

Romanian classes are held twice a week, and our volunteers are already trying their best every day to learn the language in order to develop better communication with students in the associated centers. They are becoming a solid group, they are consolidating the friendship with their mentors and young people from Craiova every day. Group travel plans have also emerged, to discover Craiova and its surroundings. And in fact, some volunteers have already made a four-day trip to Bulgaria taking advantage of national holidays; there they have been able to know both the capital and other small cities in the country.