EVS Stories: Behind the EVS Caravans

Hi everyone! We are the team behind IN4EVS.  This time we want to share with you our experience this summer doing Caravans. These are activities and games, which aim in showing what EVS is, from our point of view. For that we’ve gone to Seini, Tg. Lapus, Negresti, Zalau and Sighetu Marmatiei.

When I found out about the Caravans, I didn’t have a clear idea about them, because it was a whole new concept for me. But as Lithuanians say it’s better to see once, than to hear hundreds of times (I know we are not original, we just modified an Asian proverb).

When I saw the concept and people who came, I felt in love with it and I couldn’t get enough of them. I would do them with a pleasure until the end of the project. I also like the Infodesks, but in the Caravans the relationships were much warmer and closer, because, first, they came of their own free will, second, they saw it as an entertainment, third, it was a much more playful concept. It was a really nice exchange of emotions. So, I wouldn’t be against doing the Caravans on weekends (with the free days instead, of course), because it is impossible in any other way, as the school year already started.

So, personally for me the Caravans were much better than I thought and I would love to have more of them, because in that way I could improve myself even more in a pleasant way – communicating with nice and enthusiastic people.

This summer we had some amazing activities… Caravans! Yeah, there were not so many as info desk, and with less people… But these experiences were amazing.
To explain this emotion better… It’s not only about funny activities, and show what EVS means. In Caravans we interact with a lot of cool youngsters, very friendly and nice. I loved having those moments with them, in a more relaxed environment and talking individually with he participants.
Also I appreciated (and I appreciate) so much all the good things written in the post-its. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, in each Caravan we put a flip chart paper on a wall; And during the activities everyone (participants and volunteers) could stick post-its with some nice messages on it. This works as feedback, but at the end it’s creating also a good feeling after meeting this cool people.

The caravan’s experience for me was very gratifying because we could have closer treatment with the youngsters in a more informal environment than in a classroom as during our Info-desk. Personally I felt them more motivated and open-minded to learn more about the EVS than the youngsters from the high schools, but I think that is something logical because both kind of activities were very different. I liked also to go to others places that I didn’t know yet and discover more about Romania with my project mates. Definitely we accomplished the Caravan’s aim to announce to the youngsters the possibilities that they have to go abroad and have an experience like ours.

I have a conflicting opinion about IN4EVS Caravans. On the one hand, they were very exciting and enchanting, because I have spent a lot of time with nice and intelligent people, I explored new places and enjoyed Romanian nature. But on the other hand, for me we spent too much time traveling to be fully enjoyable.

I enjoyed the four Caravans I participated in. First, we played some games with the youngsters, where each of us explained one activity. Then came the main part: A game where the teenagers had to complete a puzzle about EVS by doing different tasks. After they completed a task, they got a puzzle piece (related to key EVS procedures) and we explained the information to them. I had the job of explaining ”the role of sending and hosting organizations” after they said a poem for me or ordered themselves by age without speaking. After that game, we told them some of our experiences and funny things that happened to us. Then we had a game where they had to create the ”perfect volunteer” out of some given traits, only to find out that the perfect volunteer does not exist. In the end, we answered their questions. We had a paper where they could write what they liked, what they didn’t like and suggestions. Their answers were often funny, for example one guy wrote that he likes girls, he doesn’t like boys and his suggestion was to have more girls.

We are glad that we have spent our summer in a useful and interesting way spreading good vibes and information that could help the youngsters in the future!

Skaiste and Juste (Lituania), Rosa (Austria), Jorge and Inma (Spain) are hosted in Baia Mare by Team for Youth Association, in the “IN4EVS” project, an European Voluntary Service financed by the European Commission through the Erasmus Plus Program.