Swiss students choose New Mills for their ‘Language Stay’

It was a sad day at the New Mills & District Volunteer Centre (NMVC) as we had to say good bye and good luck to two of our lovely volunteers.

We were extremely fortunate to receive an email in September 2022 from two students – Sam and Selen from Lucerne in Switzerland, who were interested in a coming to the UK to volunteer within a community. At their school, ‘Fachmittelschule, Lucerne’ all school leavers are advised to do a six week language stay in an Enlish speaking country, to support their next level education applications, with a view to working and improving their already perfect English.

They searched online for a picturesque two bedroomed property in the UK that would allow them to book a short stay. New Mills came up trumps with a beautiful 昀at within the heart of the town and only a 2 minute walk away was a volunteer centre. Their application email request arrived at NMVC and then started a journey of planning, application processing and zoom meetings. Eventually they arrived at Manchester Airport ready for their adventure with us at the Centre.

Lorna Young, Group Coordinator at NMVC commented that ‘Sam and Selen just 昀tted in so well with our team, to travel from a foreign country at the age of 18 and immediate get stuck in with all our activities, takes courage, commitment and a great attitude. It is not something that we have done at the centre before but this experience has been brilliant and we hope to set this up as a regular relationship with the students from Lucerne’.

Sam and Selen got involved and supported all our community led social groups, entertaining us with presentations about their lives in Switzerland, teaching us new card games, joining our knit and natter group and learning lots of new stitches!

They cooked for our Acoustic Soup group every Monday, supporting the group playing board games and of course brushing up on their perfect English. They joined our clients taking part in weekly Chairbased exercise classes. They made gallons of tea and co昀ee and are now part of our team.

They have also navigated our reception telephone system and information desk which is usually managed by a volunteer Monday – Friday. This has de昀nitely improved their con昀dence and yesterday Selen said ‘My ability to just chat about the English weather is now second nature!’

We have also shared Sam and Selen with other organisations in our community, they have volunteered at Hay昀eld Primary school with PE lessons and reading sessions. The students are considering applying for Teaching Degrees at University and wanted to experience what our school system was like. They loved working with the children and were amazed that when it magically snowed the children still managed to concentrate on their school work.

They helped out with Youth Matters and Incredible Edibles at the local youth club evening, worked with New Mills Festival on sharing the petition to save the Lantern Parade. They got their hands dirty at the NMVC allotment, getting the vegetable beds ready for spring planting, to grow our own produce for our weekly lunch club. Attended some of our fundraising events in particlar our English Pudding afternoon, where they got to sample over 14 di昀erent creations!

Our volunteers have loved having them here too and invited them out to other events; Morris Dancing evening with a local Soroptimist group –Sam commented ‘This was the most memorable entertaining evening, we loved it’. A volunteer lead trip to Liverpool, sharing all the secrets of the City – they both really enjoyed learning about the history and culture of Liverpool. They also joined volunteers testing their general knowledge in the New Mills weekly Quizit.

We are so sad to see Sam and Selen leave us. We have so loved having them join us and be part of our team. It has been a pleasure getting to know them and we feel extremely previleged and thankful that they chose the New Mills & District Volunteer Centre to volunteer. I am sure we will see them again in the future.

Contact for further information: Lorna Young, Group Coordinator, New Mills & District Volunteer Centre. Tel: 01663744196, Email: lorna@ nmvc.org