Aloha and good day to everyone!

I just returned from Orahovica where there was a training session for the new volunteers who arrived in Croatia.

According to the European Solidarity Corps Programme Guide, all participants have the right and responsibility to attend training sessions in order to receive information about Volunteering activities under European Solidarity Corps as a support during their service and tools that will help them achieve as much as possible in the time of their service.

This On Arrival training was run by trainers Snežana Bačlija Knoch and Bojan Marjanović with the support of trainer Diana Kovačić. Although they are quite different, they share the same idea about the On Arrival course.

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On this On arrival training course we were 12 volunteers from different regions of Croatia. We didn’t know each other before the training, but the majority of the group was on the same train from Zagreb to Orahivica and we kept the mystery until we needed to change the train, which was a bit confusing for some of us. With the help of Diana we managed to reach Orahovica without any problems. But not all of us were so lucky and this is a funny story about Jordan, our bulgarian volunteer from Zabok, who lost himself in Zagreb by taking the wrong train in the opposite direction to Orahovica. Bojan, one of the trainers, managed to find Jordan on his way to Orahovica and bring him to the gathering place. With the complete team we can start our adventure in this training.

Day by day we encountered different challenges and fun facts about our process of learning and understanding the programme. As a group we easily connected and managed to know each other from the first day, even if the activities didn’t start. We had the opportunity to discover the other volunteering programs and the locations where they are running. Other than that, had the opportunity to discuss our rights and responsibilities as participants in ESC programme, we’ve got the chance to share and discuss any worries, concerns or questions we have about the experience we are undertaking, explore potential challenges and strengthen our communication and problem-solving skills, discover the way culture influences people on everyday bases, especially our service and think about learning through service and make our own learning plan. Of course that there was more information and knowledge as the activities were running.

Fun part of this training is that we share our cultures in so many ways and the amount of information and details is too big to remember everything. I feel like we’ve made a bond and we are acting like a group that can take care of each other.

It feels wholesome to know that we became friends and got attached in a group with different cultures and countries. We agreed to stick together until the end of our projects and to travel between our places in order to see how it is and, why not, to help if there is need.

Not least, the team of trainers was such a good one, in my opinion, because they managed to understand our problems, to identify the issues and to give any time of help that they could give. I felt relaxed and interested during the activities and I found myself eager to give answers to the topics that we’ve discussed in order to update and upgrade my information about solidarity and our responsibility here as volunteers.

On this way I want to thank all of you who take part in this beautiful event, volunteers and trainers, and to let you know that you can rely on me if you need something.

With love, to everyone,
See you soon!