Central station for EVS in Active

Since I was actively encouraged to blog about EVS, I will give it a try.
I was an EVS volunteer myself in 2004/2005 so I guess I know how it feels to volunteer in Active office. Since then - I have experienced 19 volunteers in Active office and we are going to welcome 3 more from September 2010.

How does it look like to be mentor for the volunteers?

First, they arrive and they know very little about Active office work, about the town and the life here. We go through Active's basic idea so we all know what we are working for, we are getting used to each other, the volunteers are usually "thrown to water" to learn how to swim by writing some application for a seminar or a campaign. The first days may look pretty empty or like "too little to do", but with the deadlines for applications - everything starts rolling. Seminars, reports, buying tickets, coordinating arrivals, departures, helping with visa, writing some more applications, going to Active seminars, meeting our members. That's what we do. And the time flows and all of a sudden I look into the callendar and I see that there is only two months left with these people who were strangers (most of the time) to me and then became collegues, we've found the ways to work together, to talk, to joke (or not) about certain things, to trust each other in work, to count on each other. And then they leave (most of the time) the town and go their way. Sometimes still involved in Active and sometimes not caring for Active at all.

I will not reveal anythinig new by writing that each volunteer is very different from the others. There is no template. And that is why there is no template for dealing with them either.

Some people like to come to the office early, some prefer sleeping longer in the mornings and work long in the evening, some love writnig projects, some prefer reading information for Newsletter, some like getting very clear instructions and detailed orders, some like getting just a first spark and then they do their thing. Some are here for the social part of the organisation, some come for being in Sweden and some want to fight for what Active believes in. And of course - all the combinations of the three.

It's very rarely easy to say bye bye. The only part that makes it a bit easier is knowing that there will be new volunteers coming. Full of ideas. Full of expectations. Full of motivation. And that I have the responsibility and honour to introduce them into this work and world and make it interesting for them. At the same time, it is up to each and everyone what they will take from here and how they experience the time in our office.

I learn every year. From some I learn to "take it easy", from some I learn structure, from some I learn about other countries, from some I learn how to go for one's dreams, from some I learn to reflect on things I have never been thinking of and from all of them I learn about relations between poeple.

To host EVS volunteers is incredibly enriching experience that gives me a lot in life. And the memories carry me further.

And I think I will blog here more often bringing some more concrete examples of our life here. If the volunteers let me in of course ;-)

Kristina