after a while...

It’s been a while since we posted something in our blog. So we thought it is time. Time to remind about ourselves and about our work we are doing here in Szeged, the sunny city of Hungary.

To start with, in last few months we started a couple new projects, as it was mentioned earlier. The  English Language Club. We have already had 8 sessions! It is a nice accomplishment. Usually there are 5+ students from 15 to 32 years old. These sessions are planned by Daniele and Anita. We are making sessions in non-formal way (games and fun activities) because our aim is to make them to speak in English more freely, not to learn grammar, to reach the point when they are not afraid to speak in front of other people, to make mistakes by speaking. In this case mistakes are “the best friends”. We EVS volunteers understand that, because we are learning local languages, which we cannot speak at all. And it is hard, really hard, but possible.

Other project we are always busy with is Schools. We are going to public schools and talking about intercultural communication with kids and teenagers ( from 1^st to 10^th grade). Sessions are planned by all of us. We are trying to make it more interactive and interesting. Sometimes we even have to try their patience, etc. in session 2 we brought rice in two colors. Students had to divide the rice, to make two groups of rice. After that they had to make a shape from them. Some of them made hearts, horses or simply wrote their names. And the funny part comes – without saying nothing we just came and destroyed everything what they did. They were mad and nervous, one girl even said “Now I really hate you”. After the exercise we tried to reflect about that. Not all classes were willing to do that, but we tried. During the sessions we could see how different the classes are. How different bonds they have, and these things were really influencing the sessions, etc. the class where students had a stronger relationship could play games, express their opinions more freely.

What is more, we planned a session for migrant kids too. It was called “Maszkok”, because of the carnival which take place every year in order to say goodbye to winter, and greet then spring. Agathe prepared a short presentation about that kind of festivals around the globe, than we started to do the main thing – masks – and kids really enjoyed that!

So that is what happened during these two months. Bla bla is over :DD