Our volunteering at Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) – Ömer Faruk Kizil and Ufuk Birdal Gürbüz, Turkey
Hello, we are Ömer, 19 and Ufuk, 21. We are from Türkiye and we both study at Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University. We met at the youth centre in Muğla before the project. We had a good friendship before this project and our communication was very good, but thanks to this project, our friendship has become stronger. We became a very good team by complementing each other’s shortcomings.
Our youth leader in our youth centre in Muğla thought this project would suit our skills and interests and showed us the info pack. We reviewed the info pack and decided that it was suitable for us and we actually loved the idea. We both wanted to volunteer abroad because we had done it in our own country and wanted to experience it in other cultures as well.
So why did we choose this project and Bosnia and Herzegovina?
Our interest in working with children and our enjoyment of spending time with them motivated us to choose this project. We also have many young friends in Türkiye with the same ideas, and our desire to meet young people with different ideas was key in this process. The reason why we have chosen Bosnia and Herzegovina is that they came out of the war very recently and their ties with the Ottoman Empire, in other words, the history of Bosnia in general, was influential in choosing this place.
Even though we do not know the local language of this country, we quickly adapted to this place thanks to the local people, volunteers, mentors and coordinators. At the same time, while improving our English, we learned basic Bosnian words and phrases and were able to use them easily in our daily lives. In this way, we accelerated intercultural interaction. We got to learn how many languages, religions and cultures in this city coexist. Thanks to the workshops we held at the youth centre, we increased our friendships with volunteers from different countries like us and we met with local volunteers. We had a great time expanding our network of friends this way. We enjoyed the workshops with the children immensely and seeing them happy motivated us. At that moment, our commitment to volunteering increased even more.
We organized workshops with children at the youth centre, carried out activities that would improve children’s creativity, empathy, memory, motor skills and socialization skills, and played memory games aimed at teaching Turkish words. We also assisted workshops prepared by other volunteers. In our presentation we held at the youth centre, we gave information about Turkish culture, local dishes, and volunteering activities in Türkiye.
Thanks to this project, our interest in projects outside our own country has increased even more and we are looking forward to applying to other such projects. The experience of living in a different country impressed us a lot, we learned about life in Bosnia. We brought things that are not in our country back to Türkiye, we tried to integrate things that are in our country but not in Bosnia. İn this way, we had the opportunity to exchange culture and experiences. During our time here, we have improved ourselves in many areas. That’s why we thank Svitac (Firefly in Bosnia) and GAP Association for bringing us together.
Ömer Faruk Kizil and Ufuk Birdal Gürbüz, Turkey
Svitac’s (Firefly in Bosnia’s) volunteers, March 2022
