My volunteering at Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) – Elmas Cokol Alpay, Turkey
My name is Elmas COKOL ALPAY. I am 28 years old. I am from Turkey. I live in Muğla. I graduated from Ege University, Department of Turkish Language and Literature in 2015. I completed my master’s degree at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University in 2018. Since 2017, I have been working as a research assistant at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. At the same time, I am doing my doctorate in the Turkish Language at this university.
In 2017, I studied at Johannes Gutenberg-University Mainz in a student exchange program. In 2018, I learned German for two months in Berlin with the scholarship of the DAAD institution (DAAD – Deutscher Akademıscher Austauschdıenst).
My academic studies focus on languages and cultures. That’s why I love getting to know new languages and cultures. Culture is the reflection of how societies perceive the universe. Language is like a mirror that reflects culture. For this reason, the relationship between language and culture interests me a lot. I like to see the similarities and differences between the languages of the world.
The reason I applied for this project is to get to know Bosnia and Herzegovina better, it has many traces of Turkish culture. Turks and Balkan people lived together for many years. For this reason, there have been cultural and linguistic exchanges between them. Coming to Bosnia and Herzegovina enabled me to experience the facts I had previously only read in scientific articles. This experience will be very beneficial for my academic studies.
I learned about this project called ‘Explore with ESC’ (Project no: 2020-1-TR01-ESC11-089063) from Professor Cahit Başdaş, my advisor at the university where I work. Then I learned the details of the project and prepared my motivation letter and CV. Finally, I applied for this project that took place at Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) in Brčko District BiH between April 4th and May 4th. On March 18th, we had a zoom meeting with Milos Popić and Dina Vošanović. After this, my project application was accepted and I arrived in Brčko on April 4th, 2022.
On the morning of April 4th, I landed in Sarajevo by plane and from here I travelled to Brčko by bus. It was 8.00pm when I arrived in Brčko. Miloš Popić greeted us and took us to our house.
My first week at the youth centre was orientation week. Here we completed the registration and residence permit procedures. We got our pocket money, did a city tour to get to know the city better and tried to learn how the youth centre works. We tried to adapt to Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia), but at the same time we planned the activities we will do here. We held informative meetings about our own workshop and cultural presentation.
Our second week was observation week. In this process, we observed the work of other volunteers and helped them. We participated in activities with children and young people. During this week, we were involved in the process of the activities, these activities inspired me for my own workshop. I prepared my presentation for next week and the activity I will do with the children.
In my third week at the youth centre, I did my first activity with children. I taught the kids how to make a paper jumping bunny for the Easter holiday. This week, I made a presentation about Muğla’s culture, food, traditional dance and touristic places. Local and foreign volunteers that I met here attended my presentation.
During my last week at the youth centre, I continued to assist other volunteers in their activities with children and youth. In my spare time, I prepared my report, article and youthpass certificate.
The month I spent here was quite productive for me. I met new people, learned some BHS language, and I had the opportunity to get to know the Bosnian culture. The international environment here has helped me to improve my English. In my previous experiences abroad, I had not been able to experience such a meaningful interaction. Working here for a common purpose in an international environment has allowed me to form more real relations. This project has been one of the most important experiences in my life. I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to participate in this project. Thank you GAP Association for the nice experience I had. When I return home, I will strongly recommend such ESC projects to the people around me.
Elmas Cokol Alpay, Turkey
Svitac’s (Firefly in Bosnia’s) volunteer, April 2022
