The lockdown and still a volunteer
The month of April was marked in most of the European countries as a lockdown period, which for a volunteer, that work and interact with other people, can be a challenge. However, this was a great moment for rediscovering passions, trying to have nice digital projects, and adopting a healthy lifestyle by the end of the quarantine.
Moving a little bit the perspective in the digital filed, we tried to gather data from other NGOs with a similar activity or purpose, from our own countries, in order to create a base for a future network. It was surprising to find out that the protection of children is a very sensitive topic in both countries, Greece and Romania, and there are quite a lot of organizations that are trying hard to provide the necessary support for this vulnerable group.
Also for any king of activity, the feedback is very important in order to create an even better impact in the future. Our NGO being aware of this aspect was very happy to receive our feedback for knowing the strong and the weak aspects. I have a great admiration for the people that are keen on making their work better even if this means sometimes receiving constructive remarks, in the conditions in which their work have been very hard and they have been putting a lot of effort in doing it perfectly. I appreciate indeed their work as being a hard one, especially in the lockdown situation in which they had to take decisions and to offer constant support, so I want to tell them through this mean too that they have all my admiration and I am very thankful for their support. Good job! As there was a month in house, personal projects were also in our schedule, so reading was the first thing that come into my mind, but not any kind of reading, reading in other languages for gaining linguistic skills. Therefore, I started with Greek fairytales and a captivating Spanish book.
This period was a good opportunity for doing
the things that we always avoid invoking the excuse of “not having time”. My
personal point was always to do more sport when I had time, so in this period
there were no excuses for “mens sana in
corpore sano[1].”
I hope to fallow this principle after this period too.
[1] Latin phrase which means: “A healthy mind in a healthy body”.
As a last point, staying more in home was a great opportunity for gaining more skills like backing. Well… I am not sure that I want to keep this habit also after the lockdown since it is quite dangerous for my weighing machine, but at least I know what I can do now.
This being said, I thing this time was a good one for discovering myself and realizing what a wonderful team I was lucky to meet and have nearby. Many thanks to all the people that supported me in this journey and that I had the honor to meet!
Corina Chircea,
ESC volunteer in Arsis (October 2019 – April 2020)
