Venus Martín left his home in Torrijos with a backpack full of illusions, and also of uncertainty, straight to Austria. Then it was the end of 2017 and countless passed through his head. A year later, he has returned from his volunteer with more weight in his backpack, but not from those initial fears ... It turns out that he brings back a family!

On October 3, 2017, I took a plane to Zurich, where two strangers picked me up to take me to a city called Dornbirn, in Vorarlberg (Austria) where I lived for a year.

The next day, one of those strangers, who would be my mentor during the project in OJAH, picked me up to do all the paperwork (change phone number, account opening at the bank, registration at the town hall ...). When we finished we went to Hohenems, where the organization was located.

During these first days everything was a real madness: lots of new people, a completely new language (German) and my English that was not quite good. I could not help being on my nerves and kept repeating myself: "Venus, don't give up, you can with this."

What was more difficult for me was to see myself surrounded by a lot of unknown people, many of them teenagers who also spoke among themselves in their language, a language that I did not know. What I didn't know at that time was that in that unknown country I would end up having a home and that all those people would end up being my family.

My job was mainly to interact with young people and teenagers who came to s'Kastle, one of our centers in Hohenems, play with them, listen to them, attend at the bar ... but in addition to this we also organized sports and cultural events, we did workshops, we collaborated in different projects with companies and schools, etc.

It was wonderful for me to discover everything I was able to do and it was a surprise to realize all the things I was doing for the first time. I did more new things in a year than I had in a long time.

It has certainly been an incredible year, full of unique lessons and experiences. Now I have friends in many parts of the world and a beautiful family in Hohenems. MY OJAH FAMILY.

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