By Diana Barbu

Main objective

We embarked on this journey through Romania on the 15th of June starting from Constanta, then going to Craiova, Arad, Baia Mare, Sighisoara and Bucharest, our goal being to discover how other organisations work and how their EVS projects were developing, but also to discuss about our own. We wanted to also discover new activities that maybe we were not doing, and just exchange our knowledge and experiences to enhance our abilities and our creative ideas on both sides.

Our experiences around the country

Although we were all really tired from all the train trips, we had an amazing experience with each and every one of the organisations. We met a lot of wonderful people from all around the globe with which we had the chance to interact in both a formal and more informal way. Of course that at first we had to have a formal meeting, so that we could achieve our main goal, but that wasn’t the only thing that made us fall in love with these people and places. It not only taught us more about the different activities that other organisations from around Romania have, but they also taught us about how life is in these different cities for foreigners and how they adapted in the environment altogether. These people were all nice enough to show us around town and hang out with us as if we were guests of honour and we hope they got the same warm feeling from us, as a group and as individuals, as we did from them.

What this experience has taught us

Firstly, we learned that we can survive really long train rides and overcome our exhaustion because of the gorgeous people that surrounded us. Secondly, this experience made us see other volunteer’s ideas and way of living in their own separate projects. Another thing that I didn’t think that we would learn is that we all have really different ways of thinking, but each and every one of us has a distinct idea about what should be and how it should be done. And, of course, how each organisation and their projects worked in their own specific ways. For example, the one in Baia Mare stood out by the way everything was extraordinarily organized and methodical with paperwork. How the people from Craiova are really excited to hear other ideas so that they can improve their own work methods, how the ones from Arad are trying to fight with the system to help people with their basic human rights and how the folks from Sighisoara, even though we were too tired to talk a lot about our own projects, are really welcoming and happy to offer their help to anyone who needs it.

Personal experience

I think that this experience, most of all, inspired me to be the change that I want to see in the world, as these volunteers from all over the world are doing. My personal conclusion is that if you want to see a change in what is happening in the world that we’re living in, we have to contribute ourselves and give an example of what world WE would like to live in.