Why I decided to volunteer

Here we go with the first post – welcome everyone to my blog! :)

I’ve been thinking a lot about how to start this, as I’ve already got a lot of thoughts and impressions since I arrived here... (and I'm not very experienced in blog writing :)). So in the end I decided to start at the very beginning: to explain a little why I decided to become a volunteer and how did I end up in Spain.

It is actually quite a long story connected to the struggle I had with my jobs last year - but I promise I’ll try to keep it simple :). I studied international relations and worked mostly in business/economics since I graduated. Last summer I decided to finally leave the job I didn’t like for quite a while, for a (seemingly) better offer. This turned out to be even worse, so last October I found myself unemployed for the first time in my life. It was kind of scary; although what scared me even more is that I wasn’t able to find a job I’d really like: all the available options seemed very inhuman, without any meaningful purpose. Luckily, right before I became unemployed I started a 9 month long self-discovery course and this helped me realize, that I want to start over and find something I like to do, somewhere further away. I had already the desire to go abroad for years, as I lived in Belgium before and I knew how much such an experience could give. So as a new year’s resolution I promised myself: this year I will make this happen, I will turn my life upside down. :)

As I was wondering about where and how to start, I came across an EVS presentation organized by Messzelátó and I went to see it simply out of curiosity. I liked the idea straight away; it somehow reminded me to the years I spent in AIESEC, passionately working many-many hours on things I really enjoyed doing and meeting lots of great people along the way. Since I wanted a change in my career direction and learn new things, this seemed like the perfect opportunity, so I started looking for a project. I was searching specifically in Spain: as I was taking Spanish classes for a while, I thought moving there could help me learn the language perfectly and discover the culture and everything along with it (and yeah, who wouldn’t want to live in a cool place like Spain :)). Luckily I came across an opportunity that seemed ideal for me: an organization was looking for a volunteer for their second-hand shop; to get help with running the shop, but also to participate in the social projects they have and come up with new ideas. I immediately applied, not much later got selected and after this all I had to do was to wait 3 (torturing) months for the good news: my project got approved! :)

So last week I moved here to Illescas to start my new adventure at Ecocompartimos - and along with it this blog with my experiences, thoughts and whatever else that will come to my mind. :)