Volunteering project in Poland

Hello, My name is Lasha Achelashvili. I am European solidarity corps volunteer in the organisation “Caritas” in Poland. It has been almost 3 months since the beginning of my volunteering activity in Gdansk, Poland. But I can not say it was a successful beginning for me. On February 2nd 2020 I departed from Kutaisi (Georgia) and arrived in Gdansk. At the airport my coordinator Martin picked me up. As it was mentioned in my contract there should have been a flat where I was supposed to live with other volunteers, but my coordinator told me that I had to live in another place for several days. This several days was extended for one month and I had to live in a nursing home where I saw scenes of elderly people dying which was very unpleasant to see. During the first one month I was living with uncertainty and Caritas’ answer was “at this time we do not have information”, “your problem will be solved in several days” and so on. I changed 4 flats during three months and believe me it was not easy to pack and unpack every 2- 3 weeks.

After my arrival in Poland, the organisation gave me several addresses where I could start working. Even though I did not know the city I visited four different places and chose one of them. I had several duties, for example I was playing with kids, helping in the kitchen, planning presentations and activities for children. Because of the Corona-virus lock down my real volunteering only lasted about three weeks. Of course we stopped working and started living in self isolation. Because of the situation our arrival training in Warsaw was canceled.

My project ends on December 31th and I hope it will continue and we will be able to do voluntary work in near future.