“Ends are not bad things, they just mean that something else is about to begin. And there are many things that don’t really end, anyway, they just begin again in a new way.” -C. JoyBell C.
Hello everyone, this is Syuzanna. Today is the day for me to look back to the last five months of my life and reflect on it as my project is coming to its end. I’ve spent five wonderful months in Silesia, and I’m very happy about it. I believe sincerely that coming here was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. This was the first time I traveled this far from home for several months. It was some kind of an experiment for me to re-evaluate my life. I wanted to change my environment and find myself in a new way. I wanted to take a break from my routine life to revise my plans and set new life priorities. Now, I can say that my experiment succeeded. This experience helped me a lot to know myself better, become more self-confident, and independent.
I volunteered at the FRSP office in the frame of the project “Empowering regions through volunteering”. It helped me develop many personal and professional skills. I was helping to promote different volunteering projects and find candidates for them. I was also conducting Russian and English classes for the local people, preparing different video materials on entrepreneurship, and promoting the Blue Generation project. One of the best experiences I had here was helping to organize the Youth Exchange project “Make Yourself More Employable” in Katowice. I spent an amazing one week there. I not only practiced my event management skills but also met amazing people from six countries.
I believe the most valuable thing about this project was meeting new people. I am very happy to get to know the FRSP team and the other volunteers. All the people I met made my project as memorable and enjoyable as possible. I made wonderful friends who became a part of my life. We traveled together, laughed, shared our life stories, had serious and deep discussions. Each of them made me who I am today.
Moreover, I traveled a lot, saw many beautiful places and historically important places. I communicated with people from different cultures and traditions and discussed many important topics. This is education that they don’t teach at schools. When you visit a place where important historical events took place, you remember it for a long and you understand it better. It helps a lot to look at many things from a different point of view and become more aware. So, this experience gave me a chance to discover many new cultures and learn a lot about history, art, architecture, religion, and much more.
I want to take the chance to thank my sending and hosting organizations for all the support they gave and for this amazing and memorable opportunity. Even though I loved this project a lot and leaving this place makes me sad, I understand that this will soon become a beginning of a new chapter.
-Syuzanna
