My volunteering experience on Chios

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Category: Experiences

Published on Wednesday, 22 June 2022 16:42

As my ten months in Greece come to an end, it's time to look back and reflect on the project. One year ago, before departing from Germany, I was excited about living on my own in a foreign country and didn't have very specific expectations for the project. I was just open to new experiences and looked forward to getting to know the other volunteers that I was going to live with. At that time, however, I did not know what variety of experiences would await me during my time on Chios. I made new friends, acquired a bunch of new skills, got to know the Greek school system and grew as a person. There were funny situations and memorable conversations but also obstacles that I had to overcome.

At the end of August, I arrived on Chios island at a traditional Chian stone house that was going to be my home for the next ten months. In the first few days, the contrast to Germany couldn't be bigger. Vrontados is a small village located on the coast and with the hot, moist summer air and the unknown language, everything seemed exotic. I also spent my first day alone until another volunteer arrived. Fortunately, we got along pretty well and started to explore our new neighborhood together. After a few days, our mentors introduced us to the local primary schools where we helped to prepare the new school year and got to know the teachers. I was already anticipating the first day of school with excitement but also nervousness because I wasn't sure what was awaiting me.

From my perspective today, the work at school was definitely one of the best parts of the project, because I got to work on a variety of different tasks, which made every day different, and developed my social and pedagogical abilities. But at the beginning it was at first difficult to find my place at school. I had to learn what tasks a volunteer can do at a school, how to use the equipment of the school and of course, to get to know the children. Especially this year this process was more difficult because there were no experienced volunteers to introduce us to the tasks at school. However, the teachers were really welcoming and helped me to integrate into school life from the very beginning. In particular, learning more Greek was a key to finding my place at school since it enabled me to communicate with the children, become their friend and also to understand daily situations at school more easily.

Throughout the year, I spent much of my time at school supporting a student from the 6th class who has learning and behavioral problems. My task was to make sure that he followed the lessons, wrote down the content of the class and to help him to improve his behavior. Since I only had a little pedagogical experience and communication was difficult, that turned out to be quite challenging. But after spending a lot of time together in the classroom as well as in the breaks where I always tried to treat him respectfully, we could build mutual trust. He started to actually listen to me and to improve his behavior. In the meantime, the boy taught me a lot of Greek words and our  daily communication was one of the best opportunities to improve my Greek.

I experienced the work at school as a process of giving and receiving. On the one hand, I offered my support to the teachers and students and on the other hand, I could become part of a new community and culture. I always tried to learn as much as possible from the teachers and was actively looking for new tasks. At school I had the opportunity to experience the Greek holidays and celebrations first hand with the children, which gave me a deep connection with the Greek culture. I also told the teachers about our German holidays and answered many questions about my home country.

A personal hardship I faced was the loss of my wallet and passport in January. After the initial shock, this represented an involuntary opportunity to get to know the Greek and German bureaucracy. I had three appointments at the police station of Chios, countless phone calls to get certain documents and waited several weeks to get an appointment at the embassy. Eventually, I could get a new passport at the German Embassy in Athens. At least this whole situation really improved my ability to manage stressful moments and to solve problems on my own.

The second big part of my project was technological work, where I worked on various websites and an online radio station with the other volunteers. This content we created informs people about Chios island and our work in the schools and educates children and young adults. When I arrived in Chios I only had basic computer knowledge like text and image editing, but during the computer work I learned a lot of new things. In particular, the experience I collected with creating and maintaining our websites is going to be very useful for my future. But also cooperating with the other volunteers and improving my creative writing were great learning outcomes! My personal project, a website about sports, enabled me to contribute my own ideas and to manage a project on my own.

Today is my last evening on Chios and I look back happily but also slightly melancholy on the memories I have made during my voluntary service. I got the chance to meet incredible, kind people and to experience a life that's completely different from the one that I used to have in Germany. I became part of the local community and will forever feel somehow connected to the Greek culture. Through the challenges of living abroad, I have grown more independent and confident as a person. It was also great that the tasks offered in my project, were covering a variety of different aspects, which is why it didn't get boring and I had a lot of learning opportunities. Overall, I am very thankful that I got the opportunity to participate in this project and for the excellent support of my hosting organization. I can only recommend my organization and an ESC in general to young people who want to contribute something to society and live in another European country. It is definitely an experience for a lifetime!