Agas first impression

Aga Wiechecka Polish Long term EVS - "February ends, spring is at the doorstep, almost two months have passed since I arrived in January. Rustavi has become my home for this time and will be for the next 10 months. During this time, I experienced a lot, I met interesting people whose stories influenced me. The first impression about Georgia? Well, I remember the snowy night when I arrived. The view from the airport was quite depressing because it was snowing and I really wanted to escape the winter. Warm welcome by the members of GYE was a kind of consolation prize :) Later it was getting better also learning Georgian language ;) Step by step and I finally will be able to have a little conversation  :) Beginnings aren't usually  so easy. Especially in a new country where you do not know anyone. The adaptation process sometimes takes several months, but in my case fortunately it hasn’t been so long. Working at GYE gave me reasons to do new things, meet new people, and try to find myself in new situations. Every day  brings something new, including teaching my mother tongue for the first time and working with children. The geography and environmental workshops are among my favorites because I consider myself responsible for these things. Also discovering the country is one of the things that I like most. Spontaneous hitchhiking trips are the best way to get to know the country, people and local culture. Also, the workshops I lead and some that I participate gave me great opportunity for spending my time in useful way. Being part of such a community is one of the things that everyone should try without the risk of losing time and regret". 

Lea's travel tips

EVS rhymes with travel! We take advantage of all our weekends to travel through Georgia, Azerbaijan and recently Armenia.

To be as efficient as possible, we divide into groups of 3, we rendezvous at specific point and go for adventures.

The hitchhiking is very funny because we never know what will happen, how long we will get to the point where we want.

Despite our different languages, we always manage to reach the desired point!

This is an opportunity to share time with locals, share a few glasses of wine, Chacha, coffees and cakes! Sometimes our drivers even invite us to lunch!

Some golden rules for the stop: to be a bunch of people, to exchange with the driver and to be as accommodating as possible with him!

SHOW BOX - that is one more great EVS project in Romania!

Buna! We are Georgian EVS Volunteers in Craiova, Romania. Our project is Shoe box which aims  to promote children’s rights, emphasizing on the right to play, as well as developing public actions to collect toys/school supplies/hygiene items/clothes. Our target group is children with different difficulties, we are making activities with them to make their lives more fun and also help them study new and practical things. Also one of our main objective is Donation, we already promoted our project in university in schools and kindergarten and collected a lot of things for this children such as toys, clothes, school supplies and hygienic items . This children really need our help and when we see their happy faces we feel that we are doing something really good and we all together are able to change at least small piece of this world.  We are making flash mobs, silent actions to promote children rights and birthday donation , we are trying to make citizens of Craiova aware that children rights are important. We are also making upcycling workshops and painting walls  with the children.

In our dream team we are volunteers  from Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Jordan . We have one aim and we work hard to reach our goals. As we are working together we also live together. Despite of our different behaviors and culture , each day we realize that we are becoming family.

Finally we want to say that EVS gives everyone a lot of opportunities to travel, learn new things, meet new people and discover new cultures.

Fallow our project activities in FB: https://www.facebook.com/EvsShoeBox/

EVS volunteers from Georgia: Zuriko Managadze & Tamari Samkharadze

Hosting organisation: Asociatia Nationala de Sprijinire a Tineretului Ecologist din Romania (ANTER)

Sending organisation: Association "Georgian Youth for Europe"

EVS hello from Romania!

Recently our 2 Georgian youngsters (Ketevani Tsoragauli and Papuna Lomouri) implementing their 5 month EVS project in Craiova, Romania. Dear reader, they wrote the letter for you! :)

"Here we are, in Craiova and think, that we are members of the best project, which we are making with an amazing team! So, name of our project is Purple, which was created to increase the opportunities of intercultural development and international cooperation among communities in Craiova. For this we are working at schools, where have meeting with pupils about many interesting topics. Including intercultural education, bullying, LGBT community, European values etc. For us, discussing about these topics is very important, because you feel, that you can change something in the society and you have opportunity to work with these fantastic children!
But despite of working at school, we are making other interesting things also. For example, we made video interviews about the topics, which were mentioned above, made a very interesting brochures and photo collages, had events about international day for tolerance and celebrated international day for migrants, had intercultural event etc. Every day here is full of emotions and you are in the process of making something amazing. It is our third month here but we are sure, , that the future will be better! In general, our project period is five month.
But, you can not make anything if your group is not full of hard-working, friendly, lovely people and fortunately, out team is like this. We are volunteers from Georgia, Ukraine, Jordan, Russia and we are working together like one team. All is us have ambition to do our best and because of this working together is happiness for us. We are not only colleagues, who are working in the one place, we are the best friends now with so many sweet memories and experiences. These people became very important for us. 
In general, EVS is not only team, with whom you are working. Here you meet too many projects and people, with whom you fell in love so much, can’t imagine life without them and it’s difficult think how life will be when you will go back in your country and not meet them every day.Here is a place, where you have opportunity to meet people from differences ethnic groups, with different religion, different culture and it is a very interesting, this experience really will change your life. 
When you are volunteer you have opportunity to travel in other countries and of course in Romania. For us, the best experience is discovering other cities of Romania, how beautiful, historical, interesting they are. When you are traveling from one city to another you fell in love with this country and people, who are living here.
We think, that be volunteer is an amazing experience and we are lucky, because we are making this in Romania, in this small and green city with the best team! "

Winter Holidays

Welcome to my holiday life haha.
Now is January, thats means Happy New year to everyone ! I wish you all the best.
I had 3 weeks holiday here in Georgia, I don't wanted to go back to  France because I just have one and half month left and I wanted to see Christmas in Georgia !
So my first week of holidays  I went to the cinema with my Friend . We watched the last "Star wars"  movie and it was cool! After that I make Christmas on the 24th December ( The original for me  ) with friends, we made buffet with lot of foods, we talked, listened to the  music etc!
It's was very great!
Next days I went 2 days in Kutaisi alone.  It's was my first trip alone haha but I survived! Actually I'm not specially fan about Kutaisi but it's was cool to be alone, because you can make what you want but I feel alone in the restaurant so I don't like for this part !
After that we organized Christmas/New Year  party  in the office, it  was very cool ! We have a lot of foods, drink and we danced a lot ! I really appreciate to dance with everyone ! Even I was tired for dance, next to me they were one or two person who telling  me " Come dance Jessica " or „ჯული“ because now I have a Georgian name by the youngster in the association haha ( I like it ! )
Than we had the official holiday in Georgia so I make New year with 3 Georgians I know just one of them because he is my Friend, haha but was really cool because I went to Mtatsminda Park in Tbilisi and I see all of the City in the night and I was very happy ! We drink until 4 a.m. and come back to Rustavi at 5 a.m.  
Upcoming days I haven’t  done  lot of things because I was really tired After new year so I just went again to the cinema to  see “The Greatest Showman” and I recommend it if you like Musical movie ! It's very great !
After I make again Christmas with other volunteer from Tbilisi and Friend! And the last weekend we went to Borjomi, we went  to the Bath ! Take a train for Bakuriani and was great I finally see the snow haha but I was freezing haha !
Soon will be February, what’s mean that I have one more month here ! And my birthday (28th February haha ) so I will enjoy the rest of my time here !
See you for the last part of my life here !
Bye bye !
Jessica.