New Discoveries on Voluntarism

On September 1 – 10, in Sfantu Gheorghe (Romania) Erasmus+ training course was held called “Service vs. Learning = Volunteering”. I had the opportunity to participate in this project as one of the three representatives of Lithuania and I discovered more things that I was actually expecting.

The most difficult part for me was working with the people I don‘t really know. There were participants from all over the Europe: Hungary, Greece, Turkey, Malta, Italy, Slovakia, Lithuania, Czech Republic, Norway, Romania. Obviously, some of the participants were really active and energetic, some were a bit shy, some were very loud, some almost didn‘t speak English. At first, when we met, we were just a group of distinct and peculiar individuals. We had to overcome our differences and with the help of trainers, tasks, energizers and teambuilding activities at the end of the project we became a team.

The moment of our presentations

Very helpful part of the project in order to understand the importance of volunteering was the part where we had to volunteer in real life for a few hours. We divided into four groups according to the places where we wanted to volunteer: dog shelter, Roma children, nursery school and Youth office. I went to the Youth office and the enthusiasm and collaboration of Romanian teenagers was another surprise for me.

International evening

Let‘s admit it – one of the reasons youth is interested in this kind of projects is the possibility to travel. Of course, we had one free day on this project. We didn‘t waste time and went to Brasov city and visited Bran castle in one day. I am very proud of me and my colleagues because we managed to plan our journey all by ourselves and reached our destination. During this day I finally felt the beauty of Romania and Transylvania region.

All in all, this project helped me to discover more about volunteering and also more about myself and my capabilities. To be honest, I didn’t know much about voluntarism before, maybe that was the reason I was very intrigued by the topic. It‘s not surprising that voluntarism isn’t popular in my country. Even so, I gained more knowledge about voluntarism, its management, tools, and types. It surprised me how differently volunteers are treated in different countries. Also, now I feel more confident in working with people I barely know. As I see it, during this project I learned more than I was expecting to. In my opinion, these achievements are more personal than professional and that‘s why they are more valuable.

Energizer