Nuorten Kotkien aktiivi Jassu on vapaaehtoisvaihdossa Brysselissä kansainvälisen kotkaliikkeen IFM-SEI:n toimistolla. Jassu kertoo vapaaehtoisvuodestaan noin kerran kuussa ilmestyvissä blogiteksteissään Nuorten Kotkien sivuilla.
I have been here already for five months! Crazy how quick time goes when you are having fun.
My first IFM-SEI project here was Proud and Visible: in the fight for women rights, organised together with Party of European Socialists (PES) in Istanbul. It was nice and educational experience for me. Everything didn’t go as planned, so I really learned how to improvise and work under pressure. Luckily I had awesome team member with me to figure things out and in the end I think we succeeded to have good training.
I have also joined in many small events and trainings organised by other organisations, where I have been representative of IFM-SEI. One of these events was Vision Inclusion kick off meeting in Berlin. It was a two day conference in the topic of inclusion, starting event of two year project to have convergent inclusion strategy for youth organisations worldwide.
Part of EVS is to join in trainings organised by National Agencies. There are two trainings to attend, on arrival and midterm training. My on arrival training was three weeks after my arrival here and midterm training end of January. What I gained from these trainings was to get to know new awesome people and learn that feedback can really matter. I wrote feedback about the first training, with my coordinator, to the National Agency and it really made a difference. Thanks to my feedback they made changes to provide even better trainings, I think that is highlight of my EVS so far.
Right now I’m working on IFM-SEI’s next project I Act: exploring masculinities. That is my biggest project during my EVS. I work with awesome international team to plan and deliver good project for participants all over Europe.
End of the year 2018 I worked a lot to finish everything in the office to have a clean start in 2019. I was really tired when my holiday started and happy to travel to Finland for the festive season.
I really enjoyed my time in Finland, seeing my family and friends, but on the last days of my holiday I started to miss my own time. I noticed that when I use word home, I’m talking about Brussels and when it came time to travel back here, it didn’t feel like traveling, it felt like way home.
