Son.

April is always a strange month. For some reason it brings some chaos and very unexpected events in our lives. During my volunteering project it was not an exception. And since it was the last month of my project, it was even more special.

At the beginning of the month my friends-volunteers and I decided to go to Istanbul before a new lockdown. This big city is never failing at making us fall in love with it and help to get some inspiration. To be honest, we got tired and our work became slower. That’s why sometimes it’s a good idea to escape Ankara and feel like a tourist in Turkey again. In some cases, though, it’s not possible anymore. After few months spent here, we just absorbed this culture and lifestyle. And this is something I find really beautiful about my volunteering experience. I am happy to know why is it so important to know “the guy” in Turkey, the meaning of “kanka” and the importance of tea drinking and dedikodu with friends. This is a unique and great experience.

In April we also had some changes in our activities. As I said, we got tired at the end. Since we knew well our job and some members of the team started to work on their own future projects, we slowed down. The food delivery was growing, we even had the opportunity to meet the minister of youth and sport who thanked us for our job, but still.. we kept doing our job, but abstracted away a little bit. It is normal, everything comes to an end.  

Our Turkish classes became more chill as well. We were mostly translating texts, dialogues, having some interesting conversations in Turkish. And we felt the progress. I am writing this at the airport already, finishing another little book in Turkish. Proud of us, really! Now be careful when you speak in Turkish around us, we will understand you! Yabanci sounds offensive at this point, abi!

Ieva and I were very determined to write our last project together. When the new lockdown started, we had enough time to work together on it. Let’s see whether it’s gonna be implemented or not. It would be great to see young people participating in it, I swear, like you see your kid growing up. We’re sorry in advance if it’s boring, we tried our best to make it entertaining and useful! 

All the other activities slowed down a bit too, but April was also a month of results. We started to think more and more about our future plans and about the knowledge/skills we’ve got after volunteering. I decided to work on my personal project. This was the time I realized that I had a deeper cultural experience in Turkey during these 6 months, than I had during my 3 years of studies in Hungary before. And I also realized, that ESC gave me the opportunity to become more confident, which I needed for starting this project alone. Before I would never do that..

I’m grateful for my new friends, amazing mentors and all other good people I met on my way here. I’m grateful for being able to see and help people, understand better their issues and learn about different ways to provide help, to make changes. I’m grateful for all the challenges that I faced during this project. It became an important part of my life and it will have a huge impact on my future.

Hopefully, I’ll see you soon in other projects. For now, I need some time to “digest” all these things and prepare myself for the next chapter of my life. Bye-bye!

March, the best month so far.

I think so far March has been the best month of my volunteering project in Turkey. 

We had big hopes for the beginning of Spring. We were waiting so long for our 

freedom and we got it. Not for a long time though, just for a month, but still.. 

We tried to make the best out of it.

After a long hibernation period in winter, Turkey finally reopened a bit and let 

us live our lives and go out during the weekend. I swear to god, I hate all these 

lockdowns with passion. I would like to experience normal life in this country, 

ama maalesef, Covid-19 is still here with us. But let me tell you something, 

this short-term freedom really reminded me why I love this place and why I 

decided to go on with this project. 

I felt that so many things happened this month.When our government 

finally reopened the cafes, my friend Ieva and I decided that we will 

go out as much as possible and we won’t visit the same place twice. 

No more sitting at home. The weather is getting better and we’re fed up 

with sitting in four walls. When I’m telling you that I almost started to cry 

when I saw the smiling happy owners of our local cafés arranging their terraces 

for the customers,I’m telling you the truth. Spring gave us inspiration, energy

and reminded how beautiful life should be. I don’t care anymore about people 

calling Ankara a boring city. I just enjoy living here, I enjoy going out with 

my friends. And I really appreciate the remaining time I have with them.

 

Actually, our love for this city is growing.. we even got new piercing 

to remind us about our life in Turkey. Weird? Well, maybe. Cute? Absolutely. 

It made me really happy, as I realize even more the importance of this time 

in my life, how it changes me and highlights some different parts of my 

character. It’s really interesting. Going out together also helped us a lot 

to bond with other volunteers and become closer. 

Honestly, before all these lockdowns and restrictions I didn’t realize how important is to spent time together outside and have a normal conversation.  If you only live or work together it doesn’t make you close automatically,  can you imagine? Now we have our small “girl gang” and we’re having more fun! Don’t judge me for not telling you about volunteering activities, because ESC projects are not only about volunteering. It’s about experiencing a new country/culture as well. In our case it was quite hard to do it before.  We mostly spent time at the office or at home. But I would never regret about the time I spent here. Let’s see what other changes will bring us spring, we’re hoping only good things.  

See you soon!

I decided to stay.

 

 

At the beginning I came to Turkey just for two months. Later I decided to prolong my short-term project and stay for six months. It was a quite easy decision for me. I just felt that I was in the right place and I had more important things to learn and to do here. Maybe after my ESC volunteering project I will be able to call Turkey home. I’ve been looking for the feeling of home for a long time.

Every day I realize better how much influence this project has on me and how much it changes me. I feel that I’m becoming more mature, I understand better what I want to do in life, what are my goals/priorities and which path I would like to choose for my future.

At the beginning of the project, I didn’t really understand how works non-formal education and why is it the best way to learn something. 

Why is it so important to give yourself time to meditate on some questions, why do you need self-evaluation, constant discussions with your mentors? Then I saw how all these small things add up together and form my new vision, my knowledge. I’ve started to find important answers for the questions I had by myself, I had no reason to ask anymore. I just gave myself time and tried to be more open-minded. I tried to look at everything from a totally different perspective.

Was it easy? Nope, not easy at all. Was it worth it? Yes, absolutely.

Each small task I received helped me bit by bit understand how I’m gaining new skills and knowledge. Now I became more confident in everything I’m doing. I accepted some things I couldn’t accept for years and found peace with myself. I wouldn’t expect to resolve my personal issues through volunteering, but that’s exactly what happened. 

January and February were quiet and productive at the same time. We had to stay at home a lot, but still managed to come to life bit by bit. We started to train all together at the office. Physical activity really made us not only stronger, but happier. It was a kind of a good way to bond as well. When it was still very cold together with our volunteers we went to Kayseri and tried snowboarding. We had a really good time! Am I a great snowboarder? Nooo. Am I proud of myself that I tried something new? Yeees.

By the way, Kayseri is a beautiful city. The view of the mountains was astonishing, don’t miss it.

We continue to learn Turkish. My roommate and I had our first attempts to read a book in Turkish. A small one, for kids. Pocahontas. With English translation on another page. We’re just starting our journey, really... But you can’t even imagine what a nice feeling it is to finally understand whole

sentences!

What else happened? 

Our first project was approved by the EU. We were so excited about this news!

Maybe we were a little bit confused and scared (you start to think: what we’re going to do next? how will we manage everything? and etc.), but still, we will keep learning and working, hopefully we’ll manage to implement it together and do something very good and useful for young people.

At home things are..always interesting. As we spent more and more time together, we’re going through some rough times. Hey, it’s not easy to become friends/family, when you’re all so different, ok? 

Don’t judge us, we’re trying our best. We need some time and patience. Communication is the key. 

And being kind to each other is another key. I’m quite optimistic and believe that in the end we will have only good memories and relations with each other. 

I will continue my journey and tell you about the final results later. Ttyl, bye!

The Show Must Go On

Hello, everyone!

This month we had the opportunity to join the Mid-term volunteer training organized by the Turkish National Agency. The event was really captivating and useful. We had the opportunity to ask many important questions about volunteering, Turkey, about our further plans after the end of our projects. We could finally meet other volunteers participating in other projects in Turkey. We spent some good time together, shared our experience, discussed everything that happened to us during our work. We even got some great tips for “surviving” in Turkey! 

The last day of training was on 25^th of December, which is an important day for the majority of our volunteers - Christmas eve. We did not have the possibility to organize a big party this year, but we had a dinner together and tried to bring some Christmas spirit to the group. It was a really great experience!

For the New Year it was not allowed to go out or celebrate with someone outside your own household. But hey, nobody can forbid you to have fun, right? Together with the volunteers of IYACA we organized ourselves a little celebration at home. We cooked our favorite traditional meals, chatted a lot and played games. It was a very special and unforgettable New Year for all of us! Maybe we couldn't spend the holidays being surrounded by our family members, but for sure we were surrounded by our friends! We had great time that night!
The second month of our volunteering project in Ankara was fairly less exciting and active, than the first one. With the new Covid restrictions imposed by the Turkish government we had to spent a lot of time at home on weekends and holidays. By the way, this is the best time for us to improve our Turkish language skills by watching Turkish TV-series, which are famous worldwide.

To be honest, this is not the easiest period for us, but the whole world is going through some rough times nowadays. We were very lucky with our hosting organization, though. Considering the circumstances, they made our schedule more flexible in order to give us some extra free time for exploring Ankara and Turkey.

I personally decided to explore the art and history museums of Ankara. The Ankara State Art and Sculpture Museum has recently reopened after a year-long restoration. This is the home to some of the most valuable works of Turkish art history. It was a pleasure to see and learn something new about Turkish culture. If you ever visit Ankara, this museum should definitely be on your must-visit list!

We have started the new year with new energy and ideas that hopefully we will be able to bring to life as soon as possible. We will continue to work on our project together and I hope that soon we will have more possibilities to have face-to-face meetings and activities! For now, kendine iyi bak ve görüşürüz!

I just love this country!

Herkese merhaba! To participate in the European Youth Voice project in Turkey was a very spontaneous decision for me. In the middle of October, I decided to try and apply for this program and in two weeks I flew to Ankara. I didn’t even have much time to process this step, I just had a strong feeling that I should be there. Of course, I had doubts about leaving Europe in these difficult times, but I thought that this opportunity is worth taking risks. Now I think that this was one of the best things I’ve ever done.

At the end of 2020, when the whole life has been frozen for a long time due to pandemic, it was such a relief to come back to Turkey. I visited Turkey before and every time I’m falling in love with this country and culture again and again. Trust me, this place has countless things to see and to discover. Even if you spend your whole life here, you won’t be able to see everything.

This is one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever visited so far. I don’t know whether you’ll ever decide to stay in Turkey for a long time or not, but at least add it to your destination goals. The majestic immense Ottoman Empire in the past nowadays transformed into a modern developed country where traditional is mixed with contemporary. 

Now, thanks to ESC and the organization I work for – IYACA, I have the opportunity to work with youth, help people, study Turkish language and learn new things about the rich Turkish culture. Of course, I cannot skip mentioning the beautiful city I live in. Ankara welcomed me with sunny days in November. At the south Autumn comes a bit later comparing to Europe, which gave me the possibility to walk a lot around the city and explore it while it was still warm. If you ever visit Ankara, take a walk to green Gençlik Parkı or see the famous black swans in Kuğulu Park, stop at a cafe and drink a traditional Turkish coffee, see the whole city from the Ankara castle, explore the amazing historical monument - Anıtkabir.

During this project I met a lot of new amazing people and even managed to travel a bit before the new restrictions were imposed. Together we visited the historical places of Ankara, spent some lovely days in Istanbul, tried plenty of delicious Turkish dishes.

Despite all the difficulties this year, we still have many interesting and useful activities. We study Turkish, help local people to learn English, work with refugees, learn about project management and non-formal education, work with social media, where we can develop our creativity.

This program gave me a great opportunity to meet new people and become a part of international community, get to know a new culture and do something useful for the society. I am very thankful for this project and looking forward to my next adventures here. See you later!