Article published and translated with the kind authorisation of the BIJ
There are more than 4.500 different offers for a EVS in areas that are as varied as social action, environment, culture, youth action, ... In their EVS at Views' - an association that promotes the integration of visually impaired youth - Anca and Loredana, two young Romanians, have participated in setting up a youth exchange. A good way to master all the necessary steps in order to themselves organise one when returning to Romania.
We are Anca and Loredana, two young Romanian EVS volunteers. We got involved in this programme because we wanted to live a number of experiences: get to know another country with another culture and another language and promote a greater mind-openness towards visually impaired people. The objective of our project was to learn and set up a project of exchange between visually impaired and sighted young people from different nationalities.
There were a number of steps to get there ! The first one was our participation in a Bi Tri Multi training in England: through a simulation game we learned there how to set up a youth exchange : how to find partners, set up the project, organise a preparatory visit and finally, realise the exchange. We did succeed ! But we also knew that reality would be different.
Back in Liège, the real exchange project was awaiting us. We then started with the administrative work: contact the different institutions in order to prepare the hosting. During the WE priori to the exchange, the whole staff learned how to guide blind people. We also had the opportunity of simulating various eye impairments. All this really helped understand the person with whom we were going to work. Then the exchange started, with all its different activities: public relations, administrative work, adaptation of documents, and so on and so forth...
The day started at eight until late at night. After work, the cultural evenings in a pub atmosphere gave the staff and the participants the opportunity to better know one another and appreciate the others' company. The project gathered 40 participants from 8 different countries, which means quite a lot of fun but also ... some problems !!! There were French speakers, English speakers and some others who did not speak either French or English. This sometimes led to communication problems.
Anyway, beyond all the difficulties that we met, beyond all satisfactions or dissatisfactions, what we did prefer was meeting new people from various places and cultures and facing different situations. That gave us the strength, the competences and the energy to further pursue our dream of getting on with our work in the youth sector.
After this, a new step is awaiting us : writing the final report of the youth exchange. Again, quite a lot of work but also quite a lot to learn. That part is not as dynamic as the youth exchange itself, but we do consider this phase as a new opportunity of learning useful things.
Now our EVS is half way through. Living this youth exchange has greatly helped us, even though there were some pleasant and some much less pleasant hours. It gave us strength to carry on. An experience like this one can help anybody to better know what he or she is capable of, to learn more about oneself and to reinforce oneself. Being supported as a beginner before starting with your own projects is a great opportunity.
Anca David et Loredana Dicsi