My Job-shadowing in K.A.NE. - Week 2

ERASMUS+/ CAPACITY BUILDING IN THE FIELD OF YOUTH

JOB SHADOWING IN K.A.NE KALAMATA – GREECE 3rd – 17th Oct, 2016 Nguyen Thi Thanh Vy Coordinator of SJ Vietnam

WEEK 2

Day 6: 8/10 Free day and time for an amazing adventure: Trekking up to the mountain of Kalamata. It was the most wonderful day, we enjoyed the beautiful scenery, ate delicious food, drank local wine and met a very happy and generous man.

Barbecue on the rooftop of Youth Center with staff and volunteers of K.A.NE.

Day 7: 9/10 Free Sunday, it was a beautiful day for enjoying the sea of Kalamata.

Colloquial dinner at Fotini’s house. Fotini and her sister are so kind and hospitable, they invited us to their house and served us very delicious Greek food.

Day 8: 10/10

• Interview with 2 EVS volunteers: Tea from Croatia and Molly from England. They shared about their projects and their feelings about volunteering at Kalamata.

• Had discussion with Molly about her workshop: English Conversation at the Youth Center. Shared with her some ideas that she can do for her workshop.

• Joined one workshop at the Youth Center: YOGA

Day 9: 11/10 • Interview with Ruya, EVS volunteer from Turkey. After many interruptions, because of a full memory on our device and people coming and going in the Youth Centre, finally we finished it. It was the funniest interview ever. • Joined a workshop at the Youth Center: Dutch class by 2 Volunteers from Holland.

Day 10: 12/10 • Cycled around to find the post office and sent postcards to some of my friends to share with them my wonderful time here in Kalamata • Joined the event in Youth Center: Workshop about creating your CV. This workshop attracted a lot of young people to attend.

• Invited Molly and Sofia to my flat, cooked Vietnamese food: Chicken noodle soup, introduced with them about culture, landscape, food, lifestyle … of Vietnam. I am very happy that they really enjoyed my cooking even though I could not find enough ingredients like I did in Vietnam and now more people know about my beloved country.

Day 11: 13/10 • Interview with Óscar, EVS volunteer from Spain. Although he just has joined the organization last week, he could get used to with the new environment. He feels happy with life here and plans for his own project.

• Workshop at the Youth Center: Sign language. As normal, this workshop also attracted a lot of people at all ages.

Day 12: 14/10 • Weekly meeting on Friday. Volunteers share about their job and feelings during previous week. Update about their next workshops and other activities.

• Opening party at the Youth Center

Fotini took me to visit a center for people with disabilities and meet the manager of this center.

I was so impressed because the center was very well equipped with full facilities and clean. The center and K.A.NE have good partnership based on trust and reliability. EVS Volunteers from K.A.NE. help in this centre, giving its memebers the chance to have different experiences, as well as to the volunteers to get more familiar to people with disabilities and the difficulties that they face.

My point of view • K.A.NE: they are professional and creative in working. Everything is planed and prepared very well. There is good communication inside the organization so everyone can get the same information. They have good cooperation with their partners so they can send volunteers to those project sites for working and volunteers can have support from those partners.

• Volunteers: they are well aware about they are doing. They have their goals before they decided to volunteer here. It means that they already got necessary information, prepared their spirit, and ready for a voluntary project. This is the most important thing for a volunteer to help them not getting shock when they come. Volunteers have their own personalities and skills, so that they can create a lot of activities and workshops for the local community. K.A.NE always encourages volunteers to brain-storm, organize and plan at least one project during their period of volunteering. This is the chance for them to show off themselves and keep them being active. All the volunteers come to K.A.NE, after the time working together, they established their connection and inspire each other. All the volunteers here said that they are really happy with their volunteering time here.

• Kalamata is a peaceful city with diversified beautiful landscape, yummy food, hospitable people. It is also one reason make volunteers feel satisfied with the life here.

• I wished I had chance to visit the organic farm project with which K.A.NE is collaborating to see how they run this kind of project because I also have the idea of creating an organic farm in Vietnam.

Other beautiful memories with people in Kalamata

• Thank you so much for being kind to me. I learned a lot of precious lessons here. I will never forget the amazing time in your wonderful land !