Respect or not respect? RespACT!

It was an EVS on-arrival training for all volunteers staying in Croatia when we were thrown a challenge: make a one-day project that would favorably influence local community, be a new idea and get implemented within 1 day together with a group of people you literally met 2 days ago.

Challenging enough? It is. For me it was about working as a team, for Natia – with a new unknown audience, for Cristina – communicating her ideas in English. And this is how three girls from Spain, Georgia and Ukraine decided to show children of 6^th grade from a primary local school that everyone is different, but it doesn’t necessarily mean bad: we can still make friends, do things together and not get bored by being clones.

Did we expect it to go smoothly? No. Did it go smoothly? No. We couldn’t imagine that our ‘small discussions’ wouldn’t work, that actually our program instead of being too long was shorter than planned, that we would throw ourselves into the pool of English class as soon as we arrive to school.

BUT! Children were happy. They were happy with drawing, jumping, trying to teach us simple Croatian phrases, us translating their sentences into Spanish, Georgian and Ukrainian. And most importantly, they told us: ‘yes, it would be boring if we were all the same, but we still can do things together.’ Mission completed!

P.S. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a try!

         P.S.S. Now Natia has an opportunity to show her NGO that even 1 day is enough to start acting. 

Kisses and hugs, Juliya.

Already two months and time goes fast!

I learned that our projects and experiences are different, fortunately.

We can talk about 14 young people travelling through Romania for 4 years, we can talk about crossing the Atlantic Ocean twice with the boat or about the great Watermelon Voyage, we can talk about preparing two years for reaching Everest and about how to rise your children and be a good mother. We can also talk about what we do to earn money, if we like it or not, we can talk about our passions and  abilities, goals or hobbies.

I learned that we have to find what we love. Our work is going to fill a large part of our life and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what we believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what we do. And if you haven’t found it yet keep looking. No matter what dreams we have... That little thing that make the difference is if we are acting every day to reach our dream.

However, I learned that living your dream it can be hard, sometimes,  because you have to be every time out of your comfort zone, you have to make every time sacrifices, you have to accept rejections, you have try  and try, again and again.

 It takes courage to start over again but we can’t quit because we haven’t reach our goal yet and is not over until we win. :)