Fanni in Padova, Italy

“I can still recall our last summer…

Among some others this one became one of the theme songs of our volunteering. Working hard, crazy nights, endless laughter, diamond tears. The rejection of the end of our project, not wanting to know about time flying fast. And the end… intense, full of joy and bittersweet moments, hurting goodbyes and silence.

But wait for a second, it doesn’t make any sense if you don’t know the beginning. So, this is how the story started: May, 2023: I was so much demotivated, depressed and busy with writing my thesis, also the problems - with myself, with my environment and those about making a decision for my future - all came together as if I didn't have enough to work on and worry about. Nevertheless, I went to an Erasmus+ training course in Italy that happened to be the best decision for that period of my life. I met there ex-volunteers and an exceptional trainer from Brno Connected, who herself used to be a volunteer too. She shared her story with me that inspired me so much that I decided to apply for a project. When I went home from the training I remember, I set up my future: psychology didn’t seem so attractive any more, instead, I understood that this knowledge and my humanistic attitude could be the basis of one of my many other competences. I created a plan with lots of different curvy paths that represent my life towards a vision, that of psychoeducation in an international environment. All I needed was gaining as many experiences as I could in order to be authentic and an expert in what I imagined to do. I believe in learning by doing and in non-formal education that’s why I started to search for opportunities in this field.

Since 2018 I’ve been participating in youth exchanges and training courses and in 2022 I also spent a semester with an Erasmus+ scholarship in Padova, Italy. By the way, Italian culture has been my passion since the age of 15, when I first took part in a student exchange program. So it was no surprise that my choice turned out to be an Italian volunteering project, in Padova. Already in the first interview I felt welcomed and both parties had kind and enthusiastic vibes for which we experienced mutual sympathy at first sight. I was glad knowing that I could return to my Italian “home town”! In September, I started the project with another volunteer coming from Spain and the third one of us came in January,

from France, to complete the picture.

Compared to the role of a student, as a volunteer I immediately felt much more involved in the daily life and activities of the community that I belonged to. I felt active and free to realize my ideas and to experience various tasks and responsibilities. For these I always received the necessary support from my coordinators and from my colleagues. On professional and on personal levels, I felt safe, secure and backtracked so I could plan and implement my work in a supportive environment.

I would say during these 10 months of volunteering I’ve never got bored, thanks to my volunteer roles and to the other extra-project things I got involved with. I loved how every week was different and that we had colourful tasks to do. Even so, I more or less had a weekly routine as each morning I went to high schools to deliver non-formal workshops on interculturality, in English. I planned my activities with the objective of improving several competences of students, like public speaking, problem solving, teamwork and creativity. My students were very grateful for each session, because they enjoyed the activities a lot and also because they could do something completely different than they had been used to during traditional, frontal lessons. During the afternoons, I held language tandems in English-Italian, both in pairs and in small groups. Also during these activities I used non-formal methods and my participants not only improved their English skills but also gained more self-confidence in speaking. For me, this was the most important feedback from them, knowing that my work is actually valuable and that they can take it away and use it in other fields of their lives as well. As my hosting organization was part of the municipality, sometimes we were also asked to organize events and help with on demand workshops. I also promoted European opportunities at schools, highlighting the ESC and E+ projects.

I also had the chance to implement my own personal project. Sometimes I organized separate non-formal workshops on various topics but then I thought that I needed something more, something longer and more intense. So I decided to design and deliver workshop series divided in months where in each month we dealt with another topic throughout interactive sessions. The topics were creativity and teamwork, communication, interculturality and inclusion, values and identity. During these workshops I really started to feel that I was on my way, I fit in the environment, I enjoyed the process and I was good at facilitation.

I coordinated another personal project that was the common personal project of ESC and Italian Civil Service volunteers together. I am really proud of it, as I could follow and cultivate the realization of a sole idea, from 0 to 100%, with all the preparations and post-production included. We wrote, registered and edited our own podcast (Storie nel bagaglio) that even for the office of Progetto Giovani was an experimental project. The idea behind was inviting young people from Padova and from other countries who decided to go and work, study or volunteer abroad and who were willing to share the essence of their experiences, how such a period could enrich their personality.

Not only I volunteered at my hosting organization, but I also found other opportunities in the city, for example I was part of the logistics team of the book festival “Fiera delle Parole”, that of the city garden festival “Anime Verdi”, and my latest occasional volunteering was at TEDxPadova.

In the meantime, I got to know other volunteers on my On-arrival training, and with two of them we started to write a youth exchange that we submitted by the deadline of February. It was a tough and hard work of two months and even if we worked on it for the very first time, we managed to rank ourselves on the 6th position. Sadly, only the first five projects got approved but we gained so much experience and so much support from partners during this time that we could really say we had benefited a lot from this period.

Also around February, I applied for the Italian Civil Service program and for a masters at a Hungarian university, too. Later, I changed my mind, realizing that I needed more challenges and also my priorities changed a lot compared with myself one year before. In the end, after my long-term volunteering, I went to a short-term team volunteering program, in Sardinia, to organize and implement a youth summer festival. As I’ve already been a participant in the International Summer Week more times, I knew that as a volunteer I would enjoy it even more, and indeed, it happened so. During my stay in Cagliari, I applied and got selected for an internship in Reggio Emilia, as project assistant. I will be responsible for ESC and E+ projects’ coordination and networking, and I think this is the extra challenge I was looking for beforehand. Thanks to the volunteering, I’ve got reinforced and empowered within my existing competences and I’ve gained new other ones, too. Now I am eager to jump into this new opportunity because I believe that this kind of new experience will bring me some steps closer to the realization of my vision and to the achievement of my goals.

From the description above you could think that my volunteering project had been mainly a profession-focused one, and well, you wouldn’t be that much mistaken. However, I just couldn’t foresee the formation of such strong and deep connections, friendships and sisterhood that I actually experienced during this emotionally intense 10 months. I experienced the creation of an international family as I could relate to my two co-volunteers and flatmates as my older and younger sisters. The part of working together was just another aspect of our common life, our personalities matched so so well that we could blindly trust and count on each other in every situation. Thanks to them I understood that sometimes the expected feedback derives from unexpected sources, that I value much more than I thought before, that I am not an impostor - I am actually good at what I’m doing. Thanks to them I experienced that I am never alone, by cooperation I can validate the principle of synergy, and I can always express my needs and rely on whoever is willing to help me. Thanks to them I tend to accept situations that I don’t have control over and focus more on things that I can change. I am more likely to follow my priorities and I stand up for my rights in an assertive way. I am a bit less overthinker, I am much more grateful for who and for what I have. I managed to reinforce my most important connections, find new

promising ones, I started to express my feelings, especially the positive ones, and this way, to bring some more kindness to the world. Thanks to them, I tend to accept my real self more and I am closer to self-love than ever before.

I can hardly find the words to express how grateful I am to these two marvellous girls who brought joy and sunshine to my everyday life in Padova; to my new friends to whom saying goodbye was just the beginning of another chapter as I’m sure we will see each other soon; and to my hosting organization and coordinators that provided me with everything I needed for a safe environment, for my improvement, and that trusted in my abstract ideas, and ensured that my motivation and dedication would find the perfect project to match with.

Coming back home was like stepping out from the ESC bubble to reality. Still cannot believe everything that I lived in these 10+1 months, how much it changed my perspectives and how much it empowered my personality. My wings experienced how it feels like flying, now they are gathering some energy to continue. My way is ahead of me: I am full of experiences and opportunities. I will remember this period as one of the best and most remarkable ones in my life and I believe that I will meet my new sisters and friends soon. Till then this has been…

…our last summer, memories that remain”

Hosting organisation:

Ufficio Progetto Giovani is the Youth Center of the Municipality of Padua, offering services, initiatives and activities aimed at young people aged 15 to 35 years. The main services offered concern the active research of work, support for youth creativity, international mobility and territorial animation.