I have always seen the EVS sa great opportunity to gain experience and to live in a foreign country by my own, for freedoom it gives and to be a volunteer.
After hours of looking on projects I finally found out many different project in different countries. I found this project about video making and promote Craiova.
I was studying on Statistic as a Bachelor degree. I realize that I really want to do Evs before I graduated and I started to make an applications. Before I been chosen I had decided if I’ll do an Evs,. I was on the 29th 2019 of March in Romania.
Although Craiova is not very big, situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia which is in south of Romania.
The first months were mainly dedicated to this, getting to know the place, the people, the way people work and adapt to city, to recognize the culture etc.
First month it was boring and kind of stressful for me but after that I adapt the city and met with other volunteers as well. I had started to do my firsts here for example too travel alone to other cities and countries.
When I came here I didn’t know anything about video editing and Photoshop and other tools. I started to learn by myself. But, now with my colleagues we help each other. I help them to improve English and we have an English speaking club and my colleagues help me to improve myself about video editing.
Also, I understand that exactly it’s not important what other people think about the place or the city. We should live there and see there with our eyes and not to have prejudice. We all have prejudices about other people, countries and that’s because of we don’t know exactly just what we saw on the news or media and that’s not enough to recognize and to learn the culture, the people way of living, thinking…
From this experience, I take out endless new life lessons every day. A wonderful opportunity to travel and discover a new culture, challenge myself by working in English, and to learn new language. Now, I can say Evs should be first of things to do before die.
When people ask me what my EVS is, the first words that come to mind are educational and illuminating. Being a volunteer has teaching me so much about myself, it has made me more active and self-aware. I just in half of my Evs but I’m sure I’ll gain more experience and I’ll be more able to gain new skills at the end.
Hasan Çobanoğlu
