I arrived in Pordenone, Italy, on the 20th August. I’ve been here for a month now and I’m really enjoying the experience so far.

At the moment I’m still in my induction period, working from 7am to 1.30pm. In the mornings I help the workers get the disabled people out of bed and tend to the personal hygiene of the disabled people. At around 9.30am I participate in one of the morning activities, such as taking the disabled people to the park, or working in one of the many craft rooms making things such as pottery or wicker baskets. At lunch time I help feed the disabled people along with the other workers, and after that I help the workers put the disabled people to bed for a nap, which is called a ‘riposo’ in Italian. Working with the disabled people is a great experience and I find it very enjoyable. They are all very loving and appear to be happy and content most of the time. I think ANFFAS is an amazing place because not only are the disabled people cared for, they are also kept very busy and are entertained throughout the day.

At ANFFAS, the workers are very friendly and will go out of their way to help me and make sure I am okay. At times, communication is difficult, but since arriving in Italy, I already feel like my understanding of the Italian language has improved. I’m also due to start attending Italian language lessons at the school at the end of the month which will hopefully help support my learning.

Alice met our ‘Green Message’ participant, Jara

I’m currently sharing the flat with two other volunteers, a French girl and a Danish girl. They are roughly the same age as me and both very friendly, which is great! Another volunteer, a French boy, is due to arrive next month. I am looking forward to meeting him because I love meeting new people! The flat itself is very nice and quite big, as well as being in a great location to get to work and into the centre of Pordenone.  Also, I’ve made lots of new Italian friends who are very sociable, which has helped me settle into my new home. I’m always busy here, either going for coffee with friends after work or to the beach at the weekend.

I have learnt so much already and I have only been here for one month out of my six month Leonardo da Vinci project! I am having an amazing time and I hope the next five months are just as good!

Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility project

part of Empowered From Within

and supported by ECORYS UK

and the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission.

We are really good here, It is an amazing experience (Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility), we are enjoying a lot! Everybody from mission locale is taking care of us.
Here is our last two weeks diary.

WEDNESDAY 10th JULY

Multimedia workshop: young people from Mission Locale were recording a short film in some locations of the island. We had the opportunity to meet them, exchange our languages and know the way they work on.

THURSDAY 11st JULY

Multimedia workshop:   second and last day of filming in some new locations. We participate in the film as extras and helping in whatever we could. We enjoyed a drink with the team to celebrate the end of the filming.

FRIDAY 12nd JULY

Multimedia workshop: editing and mounting the film with the team of Mission Locale. Meeting with Raphael to talk about the association and about the CV workshop in English (first proposal).

MONDAY 15th JULY

Meeting: we met with the team of Mission Locale to talk about all the different workshops we are going to do during the week. English class workshop: we began to prepare our personal workshop (English class and CV workshop). Brainstorming…

TUESDAY 16th JULY

Theatre workshop: we were “acting” with the young people from Mission Locale. First, we were playing some different scenes, then… Cayoning: we went to do cayoning with other young people form Mission Locale in an incredible location of the Island.

WEDNESDAY 17th JULY

English class workshop: during all the day we were working on our workshop preparing different activities and stuff for the first session.

THURSDAY 18th JULY

Comité Jeune meeting: Mission Locale from Saint Pierre organized an event to get together both offices (St.Pierre and St.Joseph).It was the perfect time to showed the sort film and other young people´s videos.

FRIDAY 19th JULY

We went with Filo to another associations in St. Joseph  where people with social  problems  can go to , for example, have a breakfast, have a shower, wash up their clothes, get info about jobs and some activities.

More coming soon…

Ana and Marcos, Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility trainees,

Leonardo Da Vinci Mobility project

part of Empowered From Within

and supported by ECORYS UK

and the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Commission.

This time I’ve decided to write about a typical day in my EVS project because I think many of you would be interested to hear some more info about it. My EVS project is in a primary school in Leeds where my task is to support the teaching stuff in general and to give French classes at least once a week.

 
The school starts at 9 am and I usually leave around 3.30 pm. As my school is a Church of England school the day usually starts with a 15 or 30 minutes long assembly where the head teacher or some special visitors talk about a certain topic usually connected to the Christian values. Then depending on my schedule I go to one of the classes. I usually help out in 2 different classes (years) a day so I work with children from the age of 3 to 11.

 
My tasks depend on the teachers and on which age group I’m working with. These tasks can be for example to help the children with maths, to listen to individual readers, to read to the children, to play with the small children or to take small groups to a different classroom and work on a specific task they have to accomplish. On Fridays, I have my own French group which I am solely responsible for; that means that I’m responsible for both the planning and the execution of the particular lesson and that there are no other teachers present in the classroom.

 
Apart from working directly with the children, sometimes I’m asked to support the teacher assistants with for example setting up a display on the classroom’s wall or to print out, cut out or laminate various photos. Once I even helped to make some costumes for the children to wear for their special Christmas performance.

 
All in all, I really like that every day I have different tasks to do in my project so I never have two identical days. Apart from this, the teachers and teacher assistants are all really nice and the children are just wonderful and great fun to be around!

By Lilla Lakatos, EVS (European Voluntary Service) volunteer in Leeds (UK).

Project part of Everything Is Possible EVS project ”With YOUth In Mind”

supported by the British Council

and the Youth In Action programme

of the European Commission.

Wednesday 21st November, Everything is Possible organized  with the help of Europe Direct, an Open Day at the Leeds Central Library, in order to promote European opportunities abroad. Indeed there are many international opportunities funded by the European Commission (Volunteering, Training, Workshop, etc.), but few are known by the public. Everything is Possible volunteering and training projects were discussed with the public during three info sessions.
Around 40 young people came during this afternoon, expressing at the end an interest to learn more about the volunteering and training projects.
Everything Is Possible’s team would like to thank Europe Direct and the Leeds Library.
All the opportunities are supported by the British Council, ECORYS UK, the Youth in Action and Lifelong Learning programme.