Halit from Turkey joined a short term ESC voluntarism program in Ioannina, at our organisation, Youth Center of Epirus. His main activities were to implement recreational and non-formal educational activities for asylum seeker children and teenagers, and to work on digital content creation on asylum seeker integration related themes. Below, you can read his testimony and see photos of his experience in Ioannina!
The activity is part of the project "Agios Athanasios" which is supported by the European Commission and is under the European Solidarity Corps programme.
When I decided to join the European Solidarity Corps `program I was a very anxious person, maybe scared and I didn't know what to expect but I was very excited.
From the first day I stepped into Ioannina, I realized that there was no point in being scared and worried because the wonderful people here were cooperating with each other to help me with everything, so to speak.
Spending time with the teenagers at the facility, listening to their life stories and being able to help them even in a small way made me feel so good. Most of the time I helped the kids by translating between English-Kurdish-Turkish, which was an incredible experience for me. I was honored to introduce my culture, Kurdish, to the people here for my personal project.
Participating in activities with the teenagers and being able to coordinate them when needed made me realize how beautiful it is to be and work as a team.
I am sure I will remember the great conversations and wonderful memories with my friends for the rest of my life. The happiness of meeting so many people from different cultures through this program is indescribable. There are even some wonderful people among them that I call my family. If I were to talk about these people I call my family, I would have to write pages and pages of articles and I am sure that nothing negative will happen on any of these pages.
And I believe that one day I will meet these beautiful friends again, maybe here, maybe somewhere else, but definitely one day.
This project was co-funded by the European Commission.