One step more – Short term Spanish volunteer

Sometimes you need to go out, discover what’s beyond, travel, get to know places and recognize yourself.

For me Rosario, a 21-year-old Spanish girl was not the first time I felt this, and I decided to travel abroad. My first time was two years ago with an Erasmus to France that takes 4 months. When I finished this experience, I knew that my next destination would be Italy.

It was all about destiny, a trip in which I visited my cousin who was also doing Erasmus, made me know about this association and a large part of their volunteers. And I thought, this is my chance, I’m going to get in touch with the association to see if they have a place for me this summer and that’s how it was.

Telling the story like this is not funny. So… I will tell you what exactly happened:

It was 21 of March at 9.19 a.m. and I messaged Leo, one Italian boy that was with me in France, telling him that I was thinking of going to TURIN to visit my cousin in her Erasmus, so maybe in the way or something I could meet him. he started to write a lot of happy emojis and OMGs, and then he told me… I’m in TORINO since September…
at first, I didn’t understand why he was so exciting… so I look in internet, distance between Torino and Turin…. and yes… maybe you think that I’m stupid because is the same… but… I didn’t know it…. finally, my cousin was living 15 minutes waking from the house of Leo… and… I decided to go to visit her like I told you before.

This experience, which has lasted 2 months, has provided me with a lot of personal as well as professional skills. Personal as you can imagine because you grow up, you become independent, you live with people from different countries, convivial life, you learn to manage your money and your time …

And professional because in my case I am studying Social Education and this experience has helped me to work with different groups: young people, people in exclusion, homeless people … in projects such as Cooking lab, Food Pride & Panacea, Language club and other projects I’ve done together with another association (Madiba) like Camping Jo, Spazio Giovanni Beinasco and video editing.

At the same time, I have been able to learn and see how an association works from within, bureaucratic, economic, communication, project management, meetings, organization, things that I learned that will surely help me in my future work for sure.

I have to say that sometimes you do not do very well with the language, I knew nothing about Italian when I arrived … But it is worth it, it is worth living 2 months your way, see how little by little your mentality undergoes changes, as little by little you feel more mature.

It’s worth it because such an opportunity you don’t have every day. I took that train that passed through the station without predisposing it, and you? Would you take it?

P.S: Who said that with 21 years I could not learn to ride a bike? If I told you … my experience riding a bike in Turin, I would give for another blog …

Thanks Eufemia for the opportunity, we will keep in contact.