Ciao a tutte e tutti!
Two months have now passed, my days as part of the Mapping Solidarity project have come to an end and it has been quite the ride. I went into this experience excited about the working positions, Palermo’s cultural possibilities based off on the city’s location in the Mediterranean Sea, cultural potential, language and culinary experiences as well as opportunity for personal development within a new environment.
For the past two months, I’ve been volunteering by helping prepare food and then washing dishes after lunch distribution at a local center. I first and foremost got familiar with a new culinary scene, authentic nonna-cooking and the Italian language. I also realized how trivial volunteering can be. Coming from Denmark and an extremely activistic community prior to this experience, volunteering has in my experience been full of adventures and big feelings, whereas this experience was on such a low, sweet, community-scale.
I think it has been an important thing to learn from this experience, because volunteering is not supposed to be life changing and grand every single moment. I finally got really attached to the people there who also gave me some homemade olive oil which I feel really thankful for.
Other volunteering activities have taught me how really Danish I am when it comes to children’s education and how important it is to have enough resources, kind approaches and good communication when it comes to children’s education centers.
In general, this experience taught me – even though I do consider myself extremely European, that being European varies a lot and I both feel less and more connected to this union, which I think will bring more goodness and solidarity to the world than otherwise. I recommend this experience to other people considering doing a volunteering program but also feel the need to emphasize that volunteering might not be for everybody.
If you engage yourself and stay curious, I am quite certain that the world will greet you with the same greatness and you will greet the world with.
Teresa Nguyen
Volontaria ESC – Mapping solidarity 2020
