18 days of travel around Italy

As almost three weeks passed without updating my blog, now it’s high time to do it. In the meantime, probably many of you could not sleep without reading my new posts, however I have a good reason for my laziness. We spent 18 days far far away from our beloved city, Milan, but now I am back to provide a concise summery on all the magical things that happened to us in this period.

1^st part: International Workshop in La Spezia:  “organization and hostility are two different things”

God was in a good mood when he gave us the chance to participate in this unforgettable event. The title of the Grundtvig workshop was the following:  MIR  Project: Roma and Migrants Inclusion– La Spezia Italy. The main aim of the event was to unite representatives of social NGO’s from the CEE and SEE part of the continent in order to gain a better knowledge on the social inclusion of Migrants and Roma and also to exchange the experiences on this field by the help of the Italian partner. As far as I know, these Grundtvig Workshops are aiming to promote the life-long learning and mutual understanding among the citizens of the EU and some other countries. Even though the program was not the part of my EVS, my supervisors let me to represent the Polgár Foundation from Hungary. During this task, I had the pleasure to work with Katalin Sattler who is also a volunteer at the above mentioned foundation.

Well, did this workshop accomplish its main goal?  If you ask me, I would say without any hesitation: no….. oww but why am I so rigorous regarding the final evaluation??  My arguments are the following:

• Imagine an international workshop which official language is Italian but the majority of the participants not speaking that language and the organizers disregarding this fact..
• Imagine an international workshop on Migrants and Roma with hardly any meaningful discussion on the situation of Roma  /or the more relevant migrants in Italy/ and only facing other’s opinion on the last day..
• Imagine a workshop on Migrants and Roma during which you participate on a pottery activity with mentally disabled people (without having any problem with them) and not meeting any members of the target groups..
• Imagine someone who is expecting to learn something new on the topic of the workshop and almost not getting anything new, but a nice holiday in the region of Liguria, while staying in a four star hotel..

But to tell something positive about this event:

• Undoubtedly, the food and the hospitality was above expectation. Sometimes I had the feeling that the ultimate goal of this workshop is to get know with the special dishes of the region. Just enough to imagine a breakfast in a four star hotel followed by a three course lunch and of course a three course dinner. I already knew that Italy is all about food, but now I’m one of the most convinced men on the globe..                                                           
• Having an unbound schedule, we had the chance to travel around the region. We managed to visit marvellous places like the Cinque Terre or Pisa..
• Last but not least, we met some really nice people and we managed to do some networking which can even affect the future of our EVS  in Italy. Disregarding the organization, I consider this event as a great chance to build and strengthen working relationship that could have a positive impact on one’s career.

2^nd part: Intensive EVS Training isolated from the outside world

After spending 10 days in La Spezia we returned to Milan for one weekend to prepare ourselves for the next challenge: the obligatory EVS arrival training (two months exactly after we arrived).

This training is prescribed by the European Commission for all those volunteers who are staying for more than half year in a different country of origin. The event took place in another four star hotel 30 kms from Naples, isolated from the outside world.

Obviously, a Grundtvig workshop for adults and an EVS arrival training for young people cannot be compared (taking into account their different target groups and purposes), however I can say that this latter one has greatly satisfied our expectations and just in contrary to the former one, we did not have to think about “the reasons of participating”. It’s partly because we did not have time to think about it (the program was so packed) and partly because we absorbed some useful information regarding our voluntary service (intercultural dialogue, conflict management, team building, prejudices) that legitimated our participation. The activities were organized by an experienced and friendly staff and the group of fellow European Volunteers proved to be a great company! Notwithstanding that some crucial questions remained like “How does Napoli look like?” I can affirm that we really had a great time there.

Instead of the empty words let the photos speak to describe what has happened to us, during the last week:

Thank You guys once more, hopefully see you again!