I am Pavel and I am an EVS volunteer in Tbilisi, Georgia since 2nd of November. My voluntary service will last until August and it will be the longest time in my life that I will not return to Tallinn. This makes me very curious how our ever-changing city will look like in 9 months. During this time I plan to write down my thoughts, activities and adventures to make blog posts to keep updated those who are interested. Let’s see how consistent I can be.
First of all I would like to explain what it is being an EVS volunteer for those of you who might not know. EVS is a project type in the Erasmus+ programme funded by the European Commission which allows individuals until 30 years old to go up to one year in another country to volunteer in an organization. Volunteering time is between 30 to 35 hours a week and includes different tasks connected to the project topic or the organization that you volunteer in and includes a balance between working and learning during the service. One of the special aspects of the programme is that as a volunteer you receive travel reimbursement, covered accommodation, transport money to work and some basic pocket and food money. Not many volunteering programmes in the world provide all these benefits, so it is a great way to contribute with your skills/time in the society, learn and travel.
So what am I going to do here? I am taking up the role of an EVS volunteer in youth association DRONI that is in Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital city. I am working with the topic of youth entrepreneurship and creating games for teenagers to raise their interest in entrepreneurship and develop skills needed for future entrepreneurs or also in the job market. Since I used to work in the school as a lecturer in marketing and entrepreneurship I feel ready to create more exciting and more engaging ways of promoting the topic. As I heard in Georgia there is not much structured education in entrepreneurship so I hope the youngsters will be as excited as me. Apart from working on youth entrepreneurship I will be working on ideas with DRONI’s team about possible services the organization can provide to become more sustainable. I hope that together with the people from Droni we will create something that can develop after I leave. Apart from doing stuff, I am keen on learning even more stuff. I am interested to see how a youth organization is led and how work is structured, to learn new methods and discover new topics for me as well as experiment with events. I want to be inspired to create new projects, ideas and clear up my professional plan for the future. I also hope to do some traveling in Georgia and around the region and visit friends in the nearby countries.
What are the first impressions? It seems to be interesting to get used to living in a warm country for the first time in my life. It’s November but I have spent a few hours on the balcony of the office working on my EVS goals and plans. The weather is a pleasant surprise. Speaking about the office it is a short bus journey away from the flat and is situated on the 13th floor with nice views of Tbilisi and surrounding mountains (that is another thing to get used to – the mountains). In the office we have quite a big team of local people working on projects and activities as well as more volunteers from Germany, Poland, Spain, Belgium and Estonia. So the first impressions are quite positive and I am ready for this adventure.
