EVS sjálfboðaliðar í Glerárkirkju

Um árabil hefur æskulýðsstarf Glerárkirkju notið styrkja frá Evrópu Unga Fólksins og meðal annars hafa þessir styrkir falið í sér stuðning við sjálfboðið starf ungmenna erlendis frá sem hafa sinnt ýmsum verkefnum í æskulýðsstarfinu sem og í nærliggjandi leikskólum. Í byrjun júlí hélt einn sjálfboðaliðinn heim að lokinni tíu mánaða dvöl og annar sjálfboðaliði mun halda heim í ágúst. Hér fyrir neðan gefa þær Jule Dörr og Yvonne Kodela lesendum glerarkirkja.is innlit í hlutverk sitt sem sjálfboðaliðar og velta vöngum yfir því sem gekk vel og því sem hefði mátt fara betur. Hæ hæ, we are the volunteers here in Glerárkirkja. My name is Jule (til hægri á myndinni) and my stay here lasts from September until June, so I will have been here ten month like the most volunteers in this project do. And I am Yvonne (til vinstri á myndinni), I am here since February until August, which means six months. The European Union has a program called "Youth for Europe". This offers different kinds of activities for intercultural work with youth, for example the European Voluntary Service, this is what we are doing. It makes it possible to live for some weeks (short term service) or months (long term service) in another country with finical support from the EU. We got an accommodation, food money, language courses, trainings and even pocket money. In opposite to a normal worker we work just six hours per day so we have time to learn about the country and the language and write our youth pass. This document describes what we have learned in our volunteer service and may help us in our future to apply for a job. Glerárkirkja is our host organization but that doesn`t mean we are just working there. Half of our working time we spend in a Kindergarten (Krógaból and Sunnuból). In the afternoons we are mostly in the church: We took care of the confirmation kids and led together with some Icelanders youth groups like Kirkjuskóli, TTT and Glerbrot. We also participated in the youth choir. When some of those groups made an excursion we always went with them and helped. Besides we help with some special kind of activities like a program for the International Day against Racism in Glerártorg or a youth exchange between Iceland and Germany. There we are part of the preparation team and organize and lead some parts of the program on ourselves. In general we like our work but of course there are also some difficulties. At the beginning it seemed to be hard for our colleges to keep in mind that we didn´t understand them and that they had to tell us some things separately because we didn`t understand their timetables or conversations. But then later when we had some practice in Icelandic it would be great to continue practicing by speaking with people. So the people around us need to respond to us and figure out when it is necessary to speak English and when not. This is not as difficult as it sounds because they can just ask us or speak to us in one language and see how we react. Because of the language barrier it is difficult to make connections to the youth of the youth groups. And of course the kids speak more with the Icelandic leaders because it is much easier for them. In the beginning it was great that there were some experienced Icelandic leaders who led mostly and we could more or less just watch and get to know the groups. But then we would have liked to be more integrated in the team. It would have been great to lead more parts on our own although it would have been probably be more difficult. Because in that way the kids would have had the possibility to get to know us (and we them) and we would have been able to learn how to express ourselves in a way that they could understand us. In September two new volunteers will arrive. We hope they will feel welcome and can profit from the experience our colleges probably have now by working with foreigners. We also would like to wish them a great time here as well and hope that the team work will get better and better. Yours Jule and Yvonne ATHS: Evrópu Unga Fólksins verkefnin er fjármögnuð með styrk frá framkvæmdastjórn Evrópusambandsins. Þær upplýsingar sem hér koma fram lýsa aðeins viðhorfum höfunda. Framkvæmdastjórnin tekur ekki ábyrgð á hvernig upplýsingar sem hér er að finna eru notaðar.