Long term EVS, Turku, Finland
Eka Bitsadze from Georgia
Sondipissa on tällä hetkellä georgialainen vapaaehtoistyöntekijä Eka Bitsadze 22v.
Since October 2016, I moved to Finland for a year. After living 4 months far away home in a different land I can sum up and tell you a few things how goes Finnish life here and what means being foreigner and EVS volunteer.
Mainly I work in one of the biggest, let’s say umbrella organization in the south-west coast city, called Turku. It’s very beautiful city, not big but with lots of teen spirit. Typically Finnish life is very different from my culture and every day is just different page of the book, it’s a huge learning process and uncounted experience.
Youth Association DRONI is my sending organization. Sondip ry. the Union of Multicultural Associations in South-West Finland is my hosting organization which promoting multiculturalism in Finnish society. I work here every working day from 10.00 till 17.00. Sometimes there are some events organized by other organizations and I help them as well. After October many events took already place in different organizations and I was involved as one of the organizer. Once I organized Georgian Cultural evening with Georgian food, wine, and real Georgian spirit. Besides this I have English class once in a week, me and another Finnish colleague of mine plan and organize it for adults who want improving English language skills. I also try to improve my Finnish language skills and learn some basic Finnish which is useful for the communications with locals.
Now I can say that I am quite lucky. Good things don’t come very often, so we have to grab it definitely. I think that this project was one of the best great decisions in my life. This project gives me an opportunity of meeting Santa, visiting Lapland, traveling by ferry from Finland to Sweden, doing some crazy things which I have never done before, for instance, jumping into the snow after Sauna, I had first experience of ice-skating, ice swimming and Zumba. I attended on arrival training in Kokkola and spent one unforgettable week at the beach of the frozen Baltic Sea. I met so many nice EVS volunteers from different countries and share our experience and expectations each other.So, proudly say that I have an unusual and very different life here. So if you (who are reading this article right now) look for an adventure and would like to change your life, it’s your turn, find EVS and go! Don’t waste the time!
P.S. for those who don’t know EVS – follow the link http://europa.eu/youth/evs_database or contact CIMO