Our ESC Volunteering in Şanlıurfa (Turkey) – „Helping others makes us feel really good and fulfilled“
ESC volunteering experience in Sanliurfa for Miriam and Medina: „Helping others makes us feel really good and fulfilled“
Hello Everyone,
We are Miriam Blaž and Medina Ibrahimovic — two volunteers who got an opportunity to participate in European Solidarity Corps’ Project Peace in Turkey. This was a collaboration project between Svitac Bosnia (BiH) and GAP Association (Turkey). This project was for 2 months in Turkey and was a really nice opportunity to volunteer abroad.
Intercultural learning for us represents a lot of things: Social integration, making awareness of our own personal identity and social skills, and at the same time becoming aware of other cultures and people. After this experience, we have a different way of valuing things. Intercultural learning gives people independence, respect, and tolerance for other people. It gives common enrichment for both sides. Every trip we take we are trying to meet local people so that we can have a view of their lifestyle, background and their view of problems, economy, experiences, ideas, and initiatives.
This was a great opportunity to achieve learning, make connections, network, and take challenges. We have learned so much about teamwork, listening, observation, and being detail-oriented. Ethical compassion is really important for us. It’s always nice to go the extra mile in every field of life, and especially in the communication and making connections. This and similar programs teach us not to have preconceptions, to have the right way of judgment — and it is so inspirational! We are so happy when we know that our voice can really be heard and this project made it happen for all of us.
We would like to single out volunteering as an important factor in life. Helping others makes us feel really good and fulfilled.
We taught Syrian refugees (kids and students) business-level English and we had a lot of different workshops. We are so proud to have participated in and contributed to the project by preparing a lot of activities for Syrian participants (children and youth). Medina and I actually met each other there and made many friends from different nationalities. Of course, we will stay friends forever. We hope this will be a project without ends. Thank you, Milos (Svitac) and Viyan (GAP association) for selecting us and supporting us during the whole project.
Miriam and Medina
