Intercultural Evening

Recently the members of the OLE project took part on an event which is always very special for the volunteers: an Intercultural Evening. This event, organized by the volunteers of Life+ project (and also our dear friends) took place in Free Wine Pub and was opened to all the community, to give Romanian people the opportunity to learn more about different cultures.

And what cultures are those, may you be wondering. Since there are volunteers from dozens of different countries, this type of event tries to explore the diversity at its best. This time the beautiful countries presented were Spain, Italy, Portugal and Macedonia and there was time for a lot of different activities to show the best about them.

As soon as the guests arrived they could immediately see and recognize the presence of the four countries through decorations, flags of each country, photographs of the most traditional cities, symbols and traditions. Then, as the night went on, the guests had opportunity to learn about interesting facts of each country through a guessing game, to watch and participate in traditional dances of different countries and even to watch a performance about Italian gestures!

Popular songs from each country were accompanying all these great moments because, as we all know, music is such an important part of every culture! In the end of the performances everyone had the opportunity to taste typical food from Spain, Italy, Portugal and Macedonia and I can honestly say that congratulations are in order, since the food was amazing! Lots of Romanian people tried it and we could see the happiness in their faces while eating tortilla de patatas, rabanadas or apple pancakes!

In conclusion, this was an amazing event that allowed the volunteers and the locals to share their cultures, try different foods and get involved in a new experience of culture exchange. To be repeated very soon, for sure, because one of the most beautiful things of volunteering abroad is opening up to new ideas, cultures and knowledge, at the same time as you share your own!

Ladies and getlemen, His Highness - FOOTBALL

   Trough out history, kicking a ball or something that looked like a ball was bringing joy to humans. This is how football was invented. At the beginning the rules of the game were very few and simple. During the years the game underwent major changes in the number of players and rules but its goal remained the same – having fun.

   The greatest thing about football is that you do not have to kick the ball to have fun; you can watch the others doing it and be amused as well. The past week the volunteers from ”OLE” decided to bring joy to their loyal pupils and for that manner they organized a football tournament. They named it “Future talents of Mihai Eminescu” and they were right about the name. These kids are talented and their future is brighter than “Alianz Arena” in Munich. Since this was the first event of “OLE” it came as a big surprise to see One hundred and twenty pupils organized in thirteen teams signed in for the tournament. But, as they say: The more, the merrier! And merrier it was. Thirteen teams were carefully chosen to represent their class and supported by cheerleading teams – their classmates. Each team had its own cheerleading team and each cheerleading team did the best to offer its team the best support. Pomes in different colors, confetti and banners with “Tigri albastri” , “FC Arad” , “Go 3C!” and many more could be seen everywhere. As always, football did its magic. The whole school was talking about it and the players of the winning teams were welcomed in the corridors with applause and ovations. As an acknowledgment of their effort and devotion the winners of first place were given a trophy and a foot ball while the winners of second and third place received certificates of participation. Every participant in the tournament received a small gift which was donated by the non-governmental and non-profitable organization “Aspis association” from Arad. It is nice when you have friends to support and help you, isn`t it?

   What I learned from this tournament is that during the years not only the rules of football have changed but the meaning of it has changed also. Football is not only a game; it is a way of life.  A good one! 

New experience: First Aid Training!

As every volunteer realizes very fast when they start this experience, European Voluntary Service is about much more than only one project. Since knowledge is never enough and the most important thing in EVS is doing as much (quality) things possible, we take advantage of every opportunity we have to try new experiences.

Last week was time for first aid training with Red Cross. During three hours we had the chance to learn about health and how to act in emergency situations, so that we can be able to react in a positive way if we encounter this type of case during EVS.

The experience was great! We had a very patient trainer, who taught us step by step what to do in different emergencies, such as if someone is choking, unconscious or seriously hurt in a leg or arm.

For every example we would learn first the theory and then we would do it ourselves, what made us really understand how difficult it can be and what we should do to make it easier. We also learned the importance of thinking fast and improvise when we do not have the desired equipment at hand. 

After all, I can say that we are now definitely more prepared to deal with the emergencies we can come across, which is extremely helpful for our volunteer work. I feel now more confident when I am responsible for the children in the school, since I have knowledge of what to do if they get hurt during any sports activity. 

2 Months of a Portuguese in Arad - TV and UTA

Big awareness, big challenges and big rewards.

From adapting to the language, trying to understand what people say, involve in the local community and with the volunteers, sharing a place with people that we never imagined to share, play with the children and adapt to local customs, etc.

All big challenges that in the end will make us stronger.

So far, so good and it stills can get better. Romania is more and more understandable despite of speaking might not be one of my biggest strenghts due to the lack of vocabulary and some misunderstandings of the "rules" of the Romanian way of speaking. 

Local community and children, it is quite possible the integration. Of course the language gap might lead to some misunderstandings but with the basic, will and gestures, everything might be possible. I have appeared on local TV (TV ARAD), also in a video of the UTA ARAD facebook (the main local football team!), the kids try to understand my romanian and what I pretend of them...so step by step and things are getting done!

UTA ARAD VS Chindia Târgoviște - VIDEO OF THE PARTY

What can I give as an example of success from gestures and lack of Romanian Language?

Entering into a store looking and trying to find out some halloween customs. The store only had Masks. So I asked "pe halloween?", and she replied "Masks". Ok, then I said Halloween customs and started to move on my jacket and pants, and she replied "Haine" (that means clothes in Romanian). After that, she told that she didn't had but gave me a card and the coordinates to the place (asa, aici, acolo, la stunga, la dreapta, da, multumesc, cu placere).

Step by step things are figuring out. Matter of time of "almost  full" adaptation.

Spanish classroom and Art Conferences.

Hello everyone!

We are Ana and Daniel, and we want to explain you some reasons because we decided to do the Spanish Clasroom and the art conferences in the school of art of Arad.

Daniel and me decided to do more things for the Arad society. For that reason we asked in that place for interact and teach art knowledge for the teenagers because we studied history of art at the University of Madrid.We will teach Spanish in Monday and Wednesday since 3 until 4.30 p.m. The Art Conferences will be until June twice per month. We are preparing s blog to share more information about art and about the conferences and our schedule. They will be in Thursday since 2 until 3.30 p.m.

With our work in the school of art we want to teach what I learned in our degree. We want to share and interact with that future artists. We want to make the potential of these future artists and be an example to follow the path of the humanities. It is the way of personal and social learning, the way teaches you to be a person, become interested in what's around you.

Volunteers in Romania: the power of non-verbal communication

It is known that communication is one of the most important parts of the life of any human. Being a social creature, human beings need to communicate, to share ideas, to develop connections through language.

One of the biggest challenges we face while doing volunteer in Romania is the language barrier. If you work mainly with people who speak English this is not a problem, but this is not the case for us. Every day we go to the schools and we have to overcome the fact that we don’t speak Romanian and that the kids we are teaching don’t understand English.

In this point, facing the challenge of communicating through words, we have only one option: using non-verbal communication. And this is when the fun starts. When I went in my first class, I was surprised. There I was, with two of my colleagues, a teacher who barely spoke English and two dozens of kids that only spoke Romanian. In these types of cases, there is only one rule to be followed: don’t use only words. Facing this situation, we had to make gestures, show the games we wanted to play by giving examples, smile or make an angry face according to each behavior the children had.

Nonverbal communication has been intensively studied and discussed by specialists. It is known that this is a very important part of any conversation, . The tone of your voice, the amount of time you look the people you are communicating with in the eye and the gestures you make are of extreme importance in any conversation and they can affect the way the other person receives your message.

If non-verbal communication is important when both the intervenients speak the same language, you can imagine its importance in communication between people who don’t understand each other through traditional language. 

In the beginning it can be difficult and sometimes even frustrating. It is possible that in the beginning you cannot send your message in the right way or the others cannot understand you. Maybe in the beginning you will have to explain something over and over again until your message is perceived. Maybe you will be shy and you will not communicate in the best way. But every day you will improve and someday this will be totally natural for you.

And in the end, everything works just perfectly: the children play the games we organize and enjoy them, they understand us through our gestures and they like us a lot.

So, think about it every day in your life: by improving your non-verbal communication skills you can improve your competence, share your ideas in a better way and be able to communicate with people who speak different languages from your own. 

And, most important, loose the fear of doing something or going somewhere just because you don’t understand the language. 

Ana Esteban Sánchez

Hi everyone!

My name is Ana Esteban Sanchez, and I am 22 years. From my family background, my parents belonged to Amnesty International campaigns, have taught me what the social struggle. An awareness that must be based on the experience in activism and social and international volunteering.But  I learn other way of learning. It was from the experience, travel and visiting other cultures and countries. For that I started to study History of Art at the University of Madrid. 

But since that, I decided for my own count to be a volunteer. First in Red Cross, working with children in risk of exclusion, after in a NGO that work with gype people. But I wanted to know more, so I started to do online courses about violence of gender, arteteraphy, musitheraphy, cooperation, social work. All of them were used to apply a in my voluntary experiencies. In fact I did a international volunteer in Morocco in 2013 during 1 month.For me, It was not enough so I decided to spend the next summer in a school of Guatemala. For that I hade to be ready with a very long preparation. I need to spend my time helping other. I love reading, about cultures, anthropology, human right (I teach them in some many high school in Madrid), to know people, the art, and the potential of the exclusion people.

After studing during four years in the University I decided to spend time learning in a non formal education experience. For that reason I applyed for a EVS Project. I think Romania has all the things that I practice in my life; social work, non formal eduaction, outdoor leisure education and cultural facts. I want to do more social work activities in my free time. I stay here in Romania to help, to teach, to learn and to interact not only with children, also with all the local community.

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