2022 m. Šiaulių Didždvario gimnazijos radijo stotyje Radijo klubas savanoriavo Ruzanna Baghdasaryan (Armėnija) ir Gizem Karaköse (Turkija).

Ruzanna Baghdasaryan (Armenia)

Volunteering is a big experience for me, and I can say it’s an opportunity to expand one’s horizons and visit new places. It’s a chance to gain invaluable experience in various projects and meet people who have the same interest in volunteering as you do. By participating in a number of events, you can express yourself both from the creative side and from the organizational side. Volunteering projects are a huge field for creativity.

Being a volunteer means contributing to society. It has a positive effect on your mental health, self-esteem, and self-confidence. Volunteering is also a job. Therefore, it can be considered as a full experience and included in your resume, especially if it’s directly related to your professional field. Sometimes people falsely imagine volunteering as only some kind of direct assistance, for example visiting orphanages. However, you can help in different ways and in different fields: providing PR or marketing services, photography, teaching, consulting, and many more. You are free to choose what suits you the best. With volunteering, you can develop soft skills like communication skills, responsibility, independence, critical thinking, etc. that are necessary for employment.

To participate in the radio station’s “Radijo klubas” activities. My role and tasks were not compulsory, more a choice. I was responsible for the activities which I would have to suggest and work on myself. As I was volunteering in a gymnasium I had a direct connection with students, I helped them to make radio shows and if needed took part in the events that they organized. I exercised my own ideas on the radio station. I was also involved in usual radio activities (creation of radio shows, a montage of the shows, creation of playlists, jingles, technical supervision of the radio, and others). I was involved in most school activities and events as well.

I gained valuable experience in fields that were totally new to me. I’ve learned to be more independent and decisive in the choices I make, improved my knowledge of the English language through constant practice, got out of my comfort zone, gained experience in living abroad, and acquired some specific working skills. I also became skillful in planning trips and traveling, considering the fact that I traveled outside my country only once in my life. And now I have my own tips for traveling, lifehacks, and tricks. I more or less overcame my fear of public speaking, as I did a number of presentations representing ESC and volunteering in general and took part in conferences. I also had a chance to work with kids in kindergarten, arranging activities for them. The time I spend working with them is priceless, I really missed teaching children, it was like a breath of fresh air to me.

I feel a noticeable difference between the time I came to Lithuania and now. I was very stressed with my job and my everyday busy life, and everything was affecting me in a negative way. I used to overthink everything and was afraid to take new steps, and new challenges, but now, everything has changed, and I think it’s because of the society and the surrounding I was living in, very caring and supportive. But I cannot say I faced big challenges here, not at all. I just went with the flow.

Volunteering gives some “bonuses” when enrolling in foreign educational institutions and receiving a grant for education. Therefore, if you ever plan to study abroad, in addition to all the other advantages, your volunteering can be a serious point in your resume as a future student. It’s a great opportunity to make new acquaintances and make friends with like-minded people as well. One of the features of volunteering is equalizing people from different spheres and social strata. You get a chance to travel, to see the rest of the world, different cultures and traditions, this must be one of the best parts of volunteering for me, because you travel and practice your language skills, improve communication skills, handle different situations outside of your comfort zone.

“Give and you shall receive”- that is my perception of volunteering.

Gizem Karaköse (Turkey)

Volunteering has become more important, especially with the need for the collective and the experience of living together gradually descended to the axis of the self-concept, as well as, with the increasing need for intercultural communication in the globalizing world. At this stage, young individuals who are willing to volunteer contribute both individually and socially by gaining experiences that money cannot buy through the activities they participate which are diversifying day by day, and are organized by different executives, both locally and internationally.

One of the most important international organizations is the European Solidarity Corps program, in which I also participate. This program is created to increase solidarity and intercultural communication between European countries and partner countries. The European Solidarity Corps program enables young individuals to gain experience in the areas needed which takes part in different countries and to develop themselves and their societies.

However, it would be wrong to introduce ESC only based on learning and self-development. In this program, as it is for me in the long-term ESC project that I am involved in a radio station called Radijo Klubas, individuals will have many contributions besides learning. Within the scope of the project, I take part in many fields, especially in radio programs and various school activities. Therefore, I had the opportunity to improve myself from technical issues required for radio to social media management. In addition, being in the same environment with volunteers from different countries, living in Lithuania for a long time and participating in various activities gave me cultural awareness. To exemplify, we hosted people from many countries in the house where we stay, and our small kitchen became the meeting point of many different cultures. At the same time, short “food name” discussions took place, and we all encountered that the products we know in our own country are not only ours, and that there is no physical border for culture and food. On the other hand, it enabled us to capture different approaches in many areas.

At some points, we had the opportunity to look at the issues that we are sensitive to from the outside. With the advantage of being born and raised in Turkey, I grew up in a multicultural environment, I lived by seeing many different cultures and traditions, so I had the opportunity to develop myself politically, economically, and socio-culturally. However, all my knowledge and education started to show itself more with the experience and practice I had with volunteering. I believe that I especially have developed myself in tolerance and looking from different angles. At this point, I started to judge my perspective on prejudiced approaches towards the country I came from, by looking at it from different sides. Understanding that some derogatory comments about my country are a genuine curiosity for the person in front of me, I took explanatory approaches and I believe that I broke some stereotypes that usually occur in Europe. Therefore, volunteering projects can be seen as an opportunity to discover yourself and your environment, rather than just an exchange program.

Like many of my volunteer friends, I have become an individual who knows better what I want at the end of the project, is more confident and looks to the future from a more hopeful and global perspective. For this reason, ESC is an opportunity that I recommend to all the young generations from Europe and partner countries who want to understand themselves and their environment as well as who want to gain an experience in their interest.