As part of the duties (but also pleasures) of an EVS volunteer there are some training courses, in particular the pre-departure, the on-arrival and the mid-term trainings. At the end of January 2016, I had the possibility to take part to the on-arrival one which took place in the biggest city of Turkey, of course it’s Istanbul. Basically, all the volunteers who are doing a long term EVS in the country were invited by mail to join the training; I was surprised to get to know we are about 45 volunteers. I was very excited at the idea to meet others EVS volunteers living in Turkey and I was looking forward to having an interesting exchange of experiences.
First of all, what is the on-arrival training about? Well, this type of training should prepare the volunteer for the service period by giving information about the host country, the rights and duties of the volunteer and some bureaucratic details. This is what is written on paper but, after taking part, I can say it’s not only about that. The training helps to create a network within the volunteers, to share ideas and to become aware of your responsibility as EVS volunteer.
How was the training develop in reality? The training was led by a team of 5 youth trainers, who have experience about EVS and it is based on the non-formal learning, which means to acquire knowledge throw structured activities. Basically, during the training we were mainly asked to do practical assignments about specific topics, such as our projects, crisis management, cultural aspects, volunteering and EVS.
Due to the dimension of the group and to improve the process of socialisation within volunteers, we were often randomly divided in small groups. Despite of this, at the end of the training we realised that we couldn’t have the possibility to interact with everybody because in 5 days it’s quite impossible know so many people. I think this was one of the main problem of the training course and I can image that also for the trainers to manage us was not easy.
Furthermore, when I took part to this training I was at my third month of service (half of the whole period), that’s why as concerning the learning section about the cultural aspects of Turkey, I got the lesson after the practice. After all, to understand a culture you just have to live in and to experience by yourself, because when I arrived in Kayseri I knew it was a conservative city, but the idea I had of conservativism was pretty different from the reality.
The parts of the training which I appreciate the most were the ones which allowed the exchange of information about our projects, because to know what kind of other activities other volunteers are doing is useful, in order to improve your own project and to develop ideas of partnership with other association. Quite beneficial it was also the explanation of the volunteer agreement, although I was surprised that everyone has a different one and some aspect are not well defined. I think there should be some guidance applicable for every contract in order to avoid misunderstanding and protect the interest of every part, overall about the transparency of the economic aspects.
Other activities were more leisure but still interesting, such as discuss about the meaning of volunteering for you, the gender equality issue and what to do in case of some crisis arise during the project. It would had been proper to discuss also about the political situation of Turkey, but this argument was declare off-topic at the beginning of the training. Of course everyone has its personal opinion, nonetheless you can’t avoid such a big issue.
There were also some activities which didn’t draw my attention, for example EVS actors, Erasmus+ priorities, learning within EVS and outcomes in EVS. The first two should had been taken less time and for the last two I think the problem was the way the activities were presented, they were more like a lesson without involving.
In conclusion, each volunteer went to training with the hope to find out a way to improve their project and the attitude towards their organisations. The given solution was communication, communication and did I say communication? Great, I didn’t know about this. I mean it’s obvious, but where can I find some other kind of support? Now, I’m glad I got to know such wonderful people, I’m sure I will keep in touch with them to support each other in our life as EVS volunteers.
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