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Diary of an EVS: #2# The adaptation

By Jaime | Published: 28/06/2011

Hi everybody, here I am, back after one month with some more news… This past month, my “adaptation” period, has been quite important for me.

Normally, when you start to live in another country it‘s always hard at the beginning. New people, even new weather, another language, other meal times, in fact, many things which are different compared to your home country.

For myself, the adaptation was not so complicated or difficult. I already knew some people before I arrived and my buddies at office created a nice working ambience. What was hard to get used to for me was to take lunch at 12:00 or carry my umbrella wherever I go… But I think these are the kind of things you can change in your person and adapt. Another thing I found totally different are the people. I come from the south of Spain and everybody there is friendly, warm and speaks loud :)   Here I made new Belgian friends and they are quite nice people, of course they are friendly and warm (they don’t speak loud) but it seems to me that maybe you need more time until you feel that that person is really open to you (in a good way). After one and half month here I feel that I am managing my life as I want to and that my period of adaptation is finished. Of course I still have to learn a lot of things about Belgian (and non-Belgian) culture but that is what I feel right now. I am starting to have control over my life.

I guess that the end of my adaptation was marked by my “on arrival training”. Since I am here, I have met a lot of people, some of them employed, others still students, but I really felt the need to meet other EVS, with whom I have something in common and perhaps share some aims. This moment came a week ago, where 25 new EVS came together to have an initiation seminar, and were later joined by another 15 EVS who did that kind of seminar months ago. In general those 5 days I spent with them were great, everybody was friendly and tried to get to know each other better, I mean, nobody felt left out of the group. The activities were ok, some times we spent too much time just talking or doing something a bit boring, but another time we were doing really interesting things, especially when we had to do our own project. There, for the first time, I met Gianluca who will be my project mate for the next months. Gianluca and I also heard a lot about festivals, different activities and interesting topics. At least I had EVS surrounding me J

Of course I did quite a lot of other things, for example a trip to Holland and Germany, some bike tours, but I guess this is not so important because what I really want to communicate in this blog is how I am changing over the time here, my expectations, my fears… In this blog I don’t really want to focus on parties and so on.

Next week the festivals are going to start and a new part of my EVS starts too. You will have news from me as soon as possible, Joetz EVS life is busy :)

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Diary of an EVS: #1# The arrival

By Jaime | Published: 23/05/2011

Hi, my name is Jaime and as you can imagine I am the new EVS at JOETZ. Well, I am 28 years old and come from Spain. I arrived in Brussels 2 weeks ago (more or less) and since that moment I realized that lot of thing will happen in my life.

I was living abroad doing an Erasmus exchange, but for me EVS means something different. In my opinion you have to be ready for working with people from another country/ies, you have to add your experience, knowledge, aims, and skills… for helping people who needs you, also enjoy meeting new people and discovering new places; and thanks to it you can have a personal growth, but this growth is difficult to get if you don’t participate in any kind of experience as EVS. 

Well, I will explain you how were my arrival and first days here. 

3 Days before coming was my brother’s wedding; it was a perfect opportunity to say goodbye to the whole family and friends. But not all my friends were there, so would be difficult to see all of them…no problem, the next day it started ‘La Feria’, the biggest festival in my city. Time for be stressful trying to meet everybody, finding friends who you don’t see for long time and so on. 

Finally I arrived in Brussels the 5th of May in the evening. My flight was more than half an hour late and there was Christelle, waiting for me, although she didn’t complain about the time, I appreciate that. After lot of months waiting, many mails to different organizations, I WAS IN BRUSSEL and my EVS started. 

The first days were strange for me, I was getting use to live in a new city, I live alone ( I always shared flat with someone) and I injured my hand before coming here, so I had a bandage during my first week here, it means I needed more time for doing everything. 

During my first day in JOETZ I met everybody, but I have an  important problem with my memory if I have to remember names, so imagine 25 at the same time J But thanks to Christelle we drew a small map with the office and where they were sitting. But I don’t need the map right know, I memorized the names :)

Here in the office everybody is nice with and the ambient is very friendly, it means that the workday is not long or bored. For that reason my next days were too fast. Also, after work I was discovering the city, new places, people… and new beers

As I said, this is my arrival. In my next post I will speak about how is going my life here, and in few weeks start the festival, so too many adventures to tell.

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Feeling all from E.V.S.

By Laura Labanda Penacho | Published: 15/11/2010

  Probably there are still a lot of people wondering what that thing called EVS means. Well here I’m not going to give you a masterly explanation about the Youth in Action programme or the European Commission working for youth, I just want to show how all that work at the offices and policies making can became effective and completely change someone’s life.

  EVS can be a lot of things, and it can mean even more depending on what you expect to get from it and how strong you are willing to fight for what you expect.

  This experience has to do with the growing up process (that one that nowadays is so difficult), it means finding yourself, opening your mind to the world, learning from the others and about the others…like this it sounds so great! Well, you should know that it is not so easy and that sometimes you can feel that it overwhelms you.  But…don’t worry there are ways to fight against it too.

Let’s get to the point and talk about ‘E’, ‘V’ and ‘S’.

E: European

  Thanks to Joetz and my project I could get a very good idea about why the word European should be here. To explain it I think I just need to tell you about my experience at one of the International Training Courses I attended, try to picture it:

  A bunch of young (and not so young) international people together in the country side of Limoges (France) to talk about ‘Youth wandering in Europe’, I was there in the name of my organization so… I was there representing Belgium, I even had the Belgian flag on the door of my room.

  Next to my room was the German flag, and who was sleeping there? A Lithuanian girl that was working for a German organization!

  Walking a little bit further across the corridor we could find the team from France, let’s say that they were all just French, but…one of them had lived for a long period of his life in Belgium.

  Doing some exercise and moving upstairs, we found the Iberian team (the Portuguese and the Spanish), in which surprisingly!! There was a Leonardo da Vinci intern from France that was working for the Spanish organization and was acting as interpreter most of the time.

  After this description, I think you can get the idea what I want to mean.

  We are a European community!! You can be born anywhere, live anywhere, have friends all around, and still feel part of something, feel the need of sharing and exchanging!

  It’s amazing to discover how each one of us is made from all the experiences and the people that we encountered along our lives.

  It’s great to see how different people from different countries, with different languages and cultures make an effort to understand each other and take part on each others’ lives.

V: Volunteer

  There are two points concerning the ‘V’ that I would like to talk about:

  The first one is that the word volunteer is what brings all the EVSers together.

  Even though each project is different from the other, although each one of us is a complete different person from the rest, with different backgrounds and aims in life… Despite all of this, there is still something that we share: we want to make a change! And we want that change to become true through whichever way we can make it!

  The second important meaning of the ‘V’ here has to do with what I learnt through all the EVS stories I heard (and my own of course), and that is that you should be careful when you look for your personal project. It’s about looking for something that you really (voluntarily) want to do!

  An EVS project has a lot of ups and downs, so if from the beginning it is something you don’t like…it will be difficult to get through the difficulties!

S: Service

  Well, this has a lot to do with the ‘V’. The EVS is a programme that gives you the opportunity to do something for the others (provide a service), while you get a lot back.

  As I was saying before, this whole experience is about giving your best to the ones around you at the same time as they help you building who you are.

  So I think that all I said makes clear that if we can find an adjective related to ‘service’; for EVS that will be USEFUL! You are doing something for your organization, for the community in which you develop your project, for yourself and for all those you will encounter along your life (who will get a bit of all that learning you acquired, because be sure that your EVS months will leave a print on you).

  So well, I think I already said a lot about the ‘E’, the ‘V’ and the ‘S’. And I hope that with it I gave you an idea about what I’m doing, how I’m living here and why I find it worthy (despite the difficulties, the strong emotions, the adaptation process…).

Just a very last advice:

-    If you are considering the EVS: be aware of all of this, and look for something that will allow you to develop as much as you can.

-    If you are already on your EVS: enjoy it, try to get as much as you can from it and do your best! Look for support and reasons to go ahead with it!

-    If you are already back from your own experience: please, don’t lose that special feeling and try to still make a change! Now you are much more ready for it!

  Useful links where you can read more about other volunteering experiences abroad:

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It can be sun, there can be clouds, it can be warm, it can rain!

By Laura Labanda Penacho | Published: 22/09/2010

   Well, two months after my first post I’m back here. There are not a lot of excuses I could give about leaving aside the Blog, but the truth is that it’s been very busy out of the office, and I was there!

   On my last post I was expecting my first big festival, well now I can say that I’m a festivals expert. One month and a half and 5 festivals! That was all madness!

   Lots of people, new friends, music, sun, rain, tiredness, joy, emotions and indeed CONDOMS…those are the words that could describe my life for the last months.

   Well I will explain you a little bit what where all the festivals about:

Gentse Feesten:

   A 10 days street festival, the whole wonderful city of Gent full of concerts, performances, shows, stands and of course…people, lots of people around.

   The Condomobiel was standing next to the Salsa Bar and in front of the Chocolate Bar, so…salsa, chocolate and condoms, a sexy combination!!!

   I was there three different days in which I could meet some more of the Joetz volunteers. I found this kind of festival a great opportunity to really interact with the people; it was not just about selling condoms but also about knowing the people, answering their questions and learning from them. One of the nicest things that I heard there it was something that a gay guy told us:

   – Maybe you already saved my live, because when I was younger I felt too ashamed to go to the pharmacy and buy the condoms, but the way you do it makes it much easier. Thanks!

   It is very nice to know that your work is really meaningful!

   Another of the things I learnt there, and that I would shout in all the following festivals, was a sentence in Dutch:

   -  Tien condooms voor twee euro!

Lokerse Feesten:

   Another 10 days festival, but this one more about music!

   I was there just for one evening-night, and actually it was not a success, the rain made it too difficult! Rain is something you always have to take into consideration when talking about Belgium I guess.

Feest in het Park:

   My first camping festival and a good memory about it. Three days and nights of music, people and cold food!!

   What started as a mess and finished more or less in the same way, gave us lots of fun in between!

   Because a misunderstood with the organization, we couldn’t set our tents at the crew camping so we were installed at the regular camping, what does it mean? Not a lot of sleep for the Condomobiel crew! And long lines for the showers also! We were 4 volunteers but just two of us were sleeping at the camping, the other lucky two had their own beds close by.

   It is not a very big festival, so at the end of the weekend almost everybody knew about the Condomobiel and its volunteers around the festival area, and it was a bit like building a big family.

   I left the festival on Sunday at 9 p.m., even though the party was still going. And at 10 a.m. a call woke me up from my comfortably sleep in a real bed to ask if I was there when at 4 a.m. the police and the fire department had to evacuate the camping site because of the flood. Then I was not regretting anymore about missing the after-party for the crew!

Pukkelpop:

   One of the biggest Belgian festivals together with Werchter, and this year it was even more special because of its 25th anniversary.

   This time the Condomobiel was standing at the camping site. We got there at 8 a.m. the day before the official start of the festival. After moving from one place to the other because the organization was not sure about where we should stand…finally we put the Condomobiel in the NGOs corner, where we had our private camping spot facing to the regular camping site.

   It was amazing to see how the tents where growing as mushrooms in an enormous empty field till we couldn’t see the grass anymore. 54,000 campers ready for four days of music, party and delightful madness!

   After the fist rainy and cold day, the sun was shinning for us the rest of the week, something that made everything much easier!

   65,000 festivalgoers from 51 different nationalities with the energy of the music running through their veins together with liters of beer!!! Music lovers, crazy outfits and people looking for a good time, that’s how I felt the festival while standing behind our counter.

   Something amazing is that nonetheless a lot of people had time to stop at the Condomobiel and have a nice talk about sex, condoms and youth sexual lives with us.

   Enven though the Condomobiel was opened till 5 a.m. a couple of nights, I could manage to have also another life at Pukkelpop, the festival life!!! A great opportunity to meet nice people and see some amazing concerts  (Blink-182, Placebo, Kate Nash, Kele) and to learn about the great music that Belgium is making (Black Box Revelation, Selah Sue were just wonderful).

   Something I will never forget was that closing concert with 2manydjs, loud music, fireworks and thousands of people singing and moving as if we were just one. That wonderful feeling that overwhelmed me, and finding myself hugging some people that I just meet a couple of weeks ago but I felt as I knew them forever. I think that then was when I understood what being a festivalgoer means!

Crammerock:

   Right after coming back from a short visit to Spain I had my last festival till today.

   Crammerock is not too big and like Feest in het Park a little bit more familiar, so after a few hours inside the festival area we already knew a lot of the people there and some of them just came back from time to time to have a nice talk with us. Still we could handle to have good sales during our night there and hand out all our free condoms.

   The bad side of this festival…the cold and that the van was standing really next to the loudspeakers, so the noise was too much and made it difficult to talk with the people.

   The bight side of it…as we where just two volunteers, we where sleeping inside the Condomobiel (even though that was not very easy as we were standing inside the festival and the music lasted too long).

   As you can see, it has been busy here!!! I hope you enjoy reading my adventures as much I enjoy telling them to you. Keep checking because soon you will have more news about what’s happening at Joetz.

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There’s a new EVS at Joetz

By Laura Labanda Penacho | Published: 15/07/2010

Before I start telling you about my EVS experience in Belgium I think I should briefly introduce myself to all of you. Well, my name is Laura, I am 24 years old and I am the new Spanish volunteer that Joetz is hosting this year. I could say that I am a Psychologist but I prefer just saying that I graduated from Psychology one year ago. I arrived to Belgium already a month ago, so by now I have a lot of things to tell you about what happened since my arrival, but today I will try to make it short, just as an introduction for the coming posts. I should tell you too that this is not the first time I am in Belgium, as I was already in Gent three years ago, doing my Erasmus. , but…first lesson: EVS is not an Erasmus, or at least for me it means something completely different. My purpose with this blog is to use it as a tool for my reflection on the things that are going on around here and the things that I am doing at Joetz. At the same time, I want to make it useful for all the potential readers, so you can get something too from this huge experience that I’m living.

First weeks = First impressions

To describe my first weeks in Belgium and at the Joetz I think I should say that everything has been happening very fast. As Ioana said in her posts, summer is a busy time here and there were already a lot of things going on in the first weeks. Probably you consider that chaos and organization cannot fit together, but well I can tell you that they do! I had the feeling that my life was a complete chaos by that time because I couldn’t find the time to settle. However, I could see that everybody around me knew what was going on and they where guiding me towards the right steps and helped me organize my new life. Second lesson: support and patience are essential at this point. I can say that I was very lucky to have very good supporters around me!

As I said that I didn’t want to make this first post too long …..I will leave it like this and soon I will give you some news. I think next week I’ll have a lot more to say as I’m going for my first big festival: de Gentse Feesten are expecting the Condomobiel and its volunteers!!!!!!!

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Hot weather, hot projects

By Ioana Sirbu | Published: 08/07/2010

I notice it’s been a while since I gave any news…my silence was due to a series of projects which kept me out of the office. I will share with you some of the moments I experienced in the past weeks in activities which made use of the great weather and offered me the chance to have lots of fun while making myself useful for the organisation.

Superpapa Dag

Although not part of my core project, Superpapa dag consisted in a day in Plopsaland, an amusement park in De Panne. My task there was more than pleasant: I gave presents to children and their daddy :) . It was lovely to see all these happy families enjoying their Saturday afternoon at the seaside.

Dagje Ostende

A couple of weeks ago, all the volunteers from Joetz (not only Brussels, but also from the regional offices) had the chance to take part in a super-game ‘Spel zonder grenzen’ at the Belgian coast (this time in Ostende). I had the chance to meet volunteers from  Gent, Hasselt a.o. and to feel like i’m taking part in a real celebration of voluntary work at Joetz. And it felt good :)

Rock Werchter

And now, my favourite!! The biggest, most crowded and craziest festival I’ve seen: 80.000 people were present every day on the festival side in a small town called Werchter.

Day 1-  June 30th- The Condomobiel team (Hannes, Wannes, Sofie, Tine, Jonas and myself) drove to Werchter one day before the kick-off of the festival, in order to prepare for the 4 days of selling condoms and offering information about healthy and safe sex :) . Everything looked huge and empty, there were barely any tents on the crew camping, the grass was green and the sun was burning :)

Day 2- July 1st- Already from the previous night, more and more tents landed on the camp. Due to some fortunate mistake of the Werchter staff, we had free drinks and food :D . Fridges were filled. After lunch, the visitors started to appear. By the evening, from a couple of hundreds of staff members (on the previous day), the festival area was happily hosting 80.000 visitors and god knows how many staff members. I went to my first Werchter concert: Kyteman’s Hiphop Orchestra. The evening was on fire with Muse and Faithless, who made it all worth it right from the first evening.

Day 3- July 2nd- Hottest day in the history of the festival!! With 35 degrees in the shadow and possibly 1000 degrees in the sun (at least that’s how I felt it), we had to make quite some efforts to stay fresh, energetic, smily and fun. But we made it, and, even though less people visited our stand, we managed to sell some good thousands of condoms. From the musical perspective, Green Day impressed me with their concert: taking their fans on the stage, offering their guitar to a lucky one, plenty of fireworks…What an atmosphere!!

Day 4- July 2nd- Although the number of visitors was the same-80.000, this day felt even more busy. Everybody seemed to be twice as active after one hour of well-deserved rain, and one could not walk 2 meter in a straight line, without bumping into 5 people. The Condomobiel got its first moments of fame, with a visit from Studio Brussel. In the evening, I held Pink in my arms as she was rolling in a giant plastic ball above the crowd.

Day 5- July 4th- The last festival day…and busiest hours for the Condomobiel. By now, we learned which were the best sandwiches, we thought each-other how to cheat at the shower-qeue, and we made a lot of friends. We sold over 3000 condoms that day, and, at six o’clock, we had our own moment of show when we decided to make it rain with condoms for a few minutes. Many people gathered around the van and we had the chance to interract with a lot of happy drunky festivalians :) . Here is the video with the interview taken by Studio Brussels.

Day 6- July 5th- Waking up at 8.00 A.M. with the sound of rain on my tent. Clearly time to go home! Beforehand, though, we took a ride on the festival area to see what’s left from the beautiful grass of Werchter. As you can imagine, the place looked terrible, and the excitement from day 1 was replaced by fatigue, nostalgy and a spicy smell of garbage. All in all, on the way home, I realised that festivals are indeed something unique and worth experiencing, but with a lot of preparation and responsibility.

On the downside of everything, I saw a lot of people passing by the Red Cross stand or having some ‘fun’ moments with the police. I saw the way the visitors’ campings looked after 4 days of madness (and you don’t have to be an environmental activist to realise how bad that is).

On the bright side of things: we sold around 15.000 condoms and gave another couple of thousands for free. So at least the sex was safe on Rock Werchter!

P.S. For pictures and latest news on the tour of the Condomobiel, check out the Condomobiel page on Facebook.

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Joetz and EVS

By Ioana Sirbu | Published: 09/06/2010

After reaching the mid-term of my EVS, I came to have quite a clear image on what my role in the organisation is, and what is it that Joetz expects from their EVS volunteers.

1. On the road for safe sex

This is one of the main projects of an EVS volunteer at Joetz. The aim of the prject is to raise awareness among youths regarding sexual education and the use of condoms. The strategy Joetz is approaching is quite interesting: a couple of volunteers hop in a colorful van and drive to Belgian music festivals. There, they enter into dialogue with young people, play games and sell colorful condom packages at very low prices.

When I was in secondary school, some scary-looking people came in the classroom and played a movie showing an abortion, making almost all the students want to run away. So maybe presenting young people the same information in a happy and relaxed manner is indeed a bit more senseful.

2. Joetz International

The second part of my daily tasks is organized around the international department, which mainly encourages Belgian young people to participate in international projects, such as youth exchanges, training courses or EVS.

After trying out a few different little tasks, I decided to focus on this blog, as my own little contribution to encouraging youths to go abroad and live some fresh experiences.

3. Miscellanious

- I am spending every free moment in the office on reading news on Health, and getting an insight on what is happening on the international agenda.

- Being a big fan of networking and knowledge sharing, I am going to meet interns from other health organizations, in order to share experiences on sexual education for teenagers.  

- I started building a database with health organisations in belgium ( I only have around 20 names so far, as I did not put too much effort in that)

- I am in charge of organising a couple of meetings for Joetz volunteers

- I started interviewing Belgian participants in youth exchanges (and sharing their experiences with you)

- I am looking for health conferences to attend (however, I didn’t find any open EU conference on health yet).

During my first week at joetz, I expressed my interest in getting to know the organisation and participating also in the events organized by other departments (there are several departments at Joetz: holidays, health, international, inclusion, and  few others :) ) Therefore, I sometimes get involved in other projects, but I will get into this another time.

Having this background in mind, I will start digging into specific events and aspects of the Belgian life in my next posts. What is important to mention, though, is that half of my tasks are self-suggested. One thing that Joetz will offer every volunteer is the opportunity to organize her/his working day accoring to personal preferences. Since initiative and self-management is something I never lacked, I was provided with a proper environment to develop and organize some of my own tasks.

Here are a couple of useful links:

Joetz vzw website (only in Dutch, unfortunatelly, but they are working on it) http://www.joetz.be 

Condomobiel Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/condomobiel?ref=profile 

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First reactions

By Ioana Sirbu | Published: 28/05/2010

The first reactions to my blog arrived on my email. Three of them say that my blog is useful, while the last one points at some language mistakes :) .

 I would like to challenge you all to also leave your comments directly on the blog, in order to encourage dialogue and communication around the topics announced. So, whether you like or not the concept of an EVS blog, whether you have anything to add or comment in relation to my posts, you are more than welcome to do so.

Let’s join the conversation! :)

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Who is WHO?

By Ioana Sirbu | Published: 26/05/2010

For all of you interested in health related topics, I would like to share the madness I experienced during the past week in the Palais des Nations in Geneva (United Nations headquarters): the WHO Assembly. 

First of all, who is WHO?

The World Health Organisation is a UN specialised Agency bringing together 193 countries in order to coordinate and regulate international health matters, such as the global research agenda or health norms and standards. Every year, the WHO Assembly meets in Geneva in order to discuss the budget, directions and research focuses for the coming year.

The sixty-third WHO Assembly

Health ministries and other officials, NGOs, media and UN staff gathered last week in Geneva and created a special atmosphere in the UN building. People from 193 countries met to discuss about alcoholism, the problems faced by health workers or Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). As a result, several resolutions were adopted.

It felt good to see how, while smaller or bigger NGOs struggle to bring a change and ensure healthy habits in their community, their work is not completely isolated or unknown. In the end, our efforts are supported by millions of other people having the same goal.

As someone wisely told me last week, let’s not lose the naive optimism. :)

For more information and concrete outcomes of the event, you can visit the WHO official webpage: http://www.who.int/en/

 

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Foreword

By Ioana Sirbu | Published: 26/05/2010

Welcome to the first Joetz EVS blog. 

I dedicate this first message to all my future potential readers, and therefore I will try to summarize the purpose and functionality that I envision for this blog. At the same time, I will take the opportunity to introduce myself.

My name is Ioana and I am a 23 year old volunteer from Brasov, Romania. I started my EVS project in March, right after my graduation in Political Sciences at Bucharest University. I am currently working from the Joetz office in Brussels, but my project implies quite some travelling all over Flanders. As this is my first journalistic attempt, please show mercy in your reader’s judgments.

The focus of this blog will be threefold: I will try to talk about EVS in general, EVS at Joetz and EVS in Belgium. Thus, I will try to touch upon aspects of the YiA programme as such, as well as youth and health topics, since this is my focus at Joetz. Moreover, I will try to give an insight of my Belgian experience with its ups and downs :)

Moreover, I hope this blog will one day become an instrument for all young people out there, in their search for an EVS insight. If you are wondering whether EVS would be good for you, or whether it is something you could see yourself doing, I hope my experiences will give you some answers.

Thirdly, I see this blog as providing a platform for dialogue around EVS, especially among existent and potential European Volunteers (but not only). I therefore invite you to leave whatever comments or questions you may have :) .

These being said, let’s start blogging!!

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