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Owners of our destiny: a story by Victor, volunteer of EVS in Ireland |
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ABOUT EVS AND EDUCATION. Almost three months volunteering in Ireland. Enough to miss your country, your family, your friends... |
But also enough to get close to the culture of the country that hosts you, to meet new friends and, what is most important, to turn them into a “new family” that is at your side in a very important moment of your life.
When I decided to participate in a volunteer project I was looking for different things. First and maybe most important was the need to get to know other cultures, live in different countries, learn languages... But on the other hand and also related to the first reason was that I saw myself “obliged” to look for alternatives to the labour market and continuing education once finished the university and having worked only during one year. The economic crisis placed a sign “out of service” referring to employment. But what in the beginning looked like a closed door and what in the “end” it also is, made me look for alternatives to those traditional ways of life, like that they tell us that we have to study until we are 25 to get into the labour market doing internships afterwards and, if we are lucky, get a job.
And fortunately I could find this different path. Luckily the most effective means of communication is not always internet or TV, but in many cases friends that inform you better than any Mass media.
That’s how I got with 25 years to a volunteer project that took me to Ireland, working with an organization that is carrying out work in the sector of Social Services, related to my studies and giving me the oportunity to learn languages, a part from all the things that contribute living in a different culture.
Since the day I got to this country it has been a positive experience, including those moments that confront you with small problems of everyday life, that in a “different language” become big challenges.
But maybe the thing that most caught my attention was meeting many girls and boys from Germany that were just about 18 years old. It seems to be more common in that country to participate in a volunteer project once you have finished school. They might see themselved “obliged” to do so, but one can see that speaking to them it is a very enriching experience, even more so with 25 years.
How many of us would have gone to another country with 18 years? And how many were ready to leave their parent’s house once the university has started?
It is true that in Spain there is a lack of information referring to the different options we have after finishing university. The paths are always: work, university or vocational training.
And it is not less true that culturally our parents support us to study a university degree, whichever it may be, making everything possible for us and “avoiding ” that we get into the labour market out of fear that the money won’t let us see our priorities.
The only thing they are looking for is that we get the oportunity that they didn’t have to climb up the social ladder.
But in occations the parental overprotection also makes the paths less bright. Because not always the fastes way is also a straight line.
And imagine, a girl or boy, 18 years old, just finished high school, “exposed” to the voluntary world, in a different country, lonely, without parental protection, would someone think that it would be his or her worst life experience?
Of course not. On the contrary. This confrontation becomes an encounter place: of cultures, people, friends... Loneliness in company, of girls and boys like him or her, motivated to learn new languages, to enjoy living together with people from other countries, to party... a bit of everything.
And last but not least, being unprotected in education. In learning to cook, to live with people..., to get to know people that did study in the university. To discover that you share a lot of things with them, expectations, emotions... Many times this means to get to know which road we take, what to study, where...
The more because many of us chose a university career without being really sure what we want to do. Also we are conscious of the lacks of the Spasnish education system, which in many cases only wants to create workers, and not people.
But it’s those deficiencies that give us the oportunity to decide about our destiny, about our education. Because not everything can be studied in books, because we have to decide our university career being 16 years old when we chose one highschool education focus or another. But in many cases the best means of communication are friends.
With 18 years we are adults with lifes of adolescents, waiting for them to tell us what to do. But it doesn’t have to be like this. It is not about studying a career just for studying, to finish it then and not to know what to do, because deep inside you would have liked to do something different.
Life is not something linear. Going in circles often we find answers to those things that are not in the encylopedias. |
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