{"id":21820,"date":"2019-12-17T09:51:34","date_gmt":"2019-12-17T07:51:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.arsis.gr\/?p=21820"},"modified":"2019-12-17T09:51:34","modified_gmt":"2019-12-17T07:51:34","slug":"aida-nicolas-perez_october","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/aida-nicolas-perez_october\/","title":{"rendered":"Aida Nicol\u00e1s P\u00e9rez_October"},"content":{"rendered":"

First steps in Thessaloniki<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was 26th\nOctober. After what it seemed a very long trip, I arrived to Thessaloniki. And\nthere were they, Ander and Corina, two of my new flatmates, waiting in the\nairport to bring me to my new home. Soon they became a real family for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The first days I didn\u2019t feel nervous at all, I really\nwanted to be here, I really wanted to become a volunteer. Despite this, the\nreasons why weren\u2019t that clear. I suppose I wanted to help, to contribute to\nthe society, maybe I felt in debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Slowly I started\ndiscovering Greece. It was crazy, it was great. I just fell in love with\nThessaloniki. The food, the people, the culture, the diversity, the atmosphere\naround all this was incredible attractive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

And then it came, the first day on the Social Support Youth Centre of Spartis in which I was going to be volunteering for the next six months. The centre was lovely, it was like a big family, and they all made me feel really welcomed. Anyway, first days were a bit strange for me and I had to make a little effort to get adapted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I started teaching\nEnglish and guitar. Not exactly teaching, as I\u2019m not a teacher, but sharing all\nthe knowledge I could. And then it started, all the doubts, the fears, the lack\nof confidence. Will I be able to do this? Am I enough good? Nothing bad\nhappened, I just suddenly felt a big loan of responsibility in my shoulders. As\nI see it, I was there to help, to give as much as I could, but find the way to\ndo it turned difficult for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time,\nthe excitement of the first days had gone and I was able to look more in deep\nand to analyse the situation. A refugee avalanche on a country still not\nrecuperated from an economic crisis. Then I understood my journey from Spain to\nGreece hadn\u2019t been long at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

That moment was hard. Seeing homeless people started\nto affected me quite a lot and a big sense of impotence appeared. And the\nhomeless people are just the tip of the iceberg, so try to imagine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think then I\nrealized what volunteering was about. Keep helping, and keep thinking that our\nlittle actions are not useless but necessary. Try to spread this spirit of\ngiving back what you have received from the others. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First steps in Thessaloniki It was 26th October. After what it seemed a very long trip, I arrived to Thessaloniki. And there were they, Ander and Corina, two of my new flatmates, waiting in the airport to bring me to my new home. Soon they became a real family for me. The first days I … Read more<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-european-solidarity-corps-solideers-i-solidarity-actions-empowered-volunteers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arsis.gr\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}