My volunteering in The Netherlands as a Svitac volunteer – Goran Antunovic, EVS
“My stay in the Netharlands as an EVS volunteer was one month long. That month I spent with another three volunteers who stayed for one month, as well as with six volunteers whose EVS lasts for one year, and coordinators from Don Bosco organization.
First few days we were getting to know each others, as well as Don Bosco organization. Already next day, we were given a task, City Safari, and of course, it included bicycles. The task was for us to find specific places (Peace palace, parliament or haring, type of fish typical for the Netherlands) in the Hague using city map (or GPS :P). That was the first adventure that the four of us had together.
After few days Amsterdam group joined us and we organized intercultural evening. During that evening we had opportunity to taste many types of drinks and food from homelands of volunteers. Intercultural evening is one of the unforgettable nights. Next week we started to work with children. Every day at 11 o’clock we had a meeting in the centre. During that meeting everyone got a group to work with. Our job was to go to the school , which was few minutes away, and to bring children to the centre. After that, children had their lunch and then we played for half an hour. Some of us played football, volleyball, while some were in the workshops making handcrafts. After we took children back to the school, we had had evaluation meeting during which we discussed the day. The rest of the day was free and you can do whatever you want.
Next weekend we went to Amsterdam. We had city tour and visited many places like museums, and the city centre. During our tour, we got brief history of the city from our hosts, Dominik and Biju. Apart from Amsterdam, we visited many other places. Some we visited by bike (Delft), some by train (Rotterdam,) and some by car (Tulip fields and Belgium).
During our last week in The Netherlands was school holiday. From Monday to Wednesday we had more than 300 kids in the centre. We were divided in 3 groups and each group worked with children of different age. I was in a group 11+. We organized various activities like parcour through the woods, Super Mario racing, and many games on the football field. Last days we spent in packing and hanging out with other volunteers.
On our last night we had goodbye party. We had a great party with bonfire next to the lake.
EVS volunteering is one beautiful experience I would recommend to everyone. A month in a beautiful city with great company from all parts of Europe. I will remember this month for my whole life and I hope to meet the people I met again in the future.
I would like to thank everyone who helped during this great adventure – to my friend Milos who was one of the most important people during this experience, to Omladinska organizacija Svitac, Don Bosco organization and its members, and all volunteers I met during this month.”
Goran Antunovic, EVS volunteer, Svitac
6th April – 6th May 2016
