Thursday, 07 December 2017 12:56

My volunteering experience in Italy by Javier Alepuz

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My first presuppositions when I was coming here on Italy were a little abstract, giving the fact that SEYF dedicates his efforts on many and varied causes, I couldn’t help but feeling kind of lost when someone ask me what was I going to do on my European volunteer service.

But all hesitation disappeared when I meet Sandro, my mentor, one of the hearts of the SEYF, along with all the rest of the team. Once you know them, you easy comprehend what kind of people they are: nice, dedicated to the others, philanthropist, and willing to fight for causes that will make this world better.

A little list of this would include the center for immigrant in Montesano, the affiliation to other entities that fight for equality like the Say Yes, or other activities which finality is to foment the interculturality, to show to the young people in Europe that, the things that makes us different are either irrelevant or can be overcome with some mutual understanding and good will.

But returning to the original idea that I was talking of, my experience, I must say that although the beginnings are, as everybody knows, difficult, I and my volunteer companion, start to adapt fast to the ideas and projects that we where going to do, or collaborate with, and with which we are happy to collaborate given the fact that are on the line of our believes and ideals, and in the end, are dedicated to make the world a better place. When we first arrive to Novoli, we quickly realized that, on a little town like that we were the novelty of the moment, even though it is barely at 9 minutes to Lecce by car. And don’t misunderstand me, we felt really well welcomed by the locals, but although all this good wills I perceived the feeling of curiosity that awakes the fact of being different or alien; other thing that made more tangible this feeling, was related with the bureaucracy and It was impossible to me to open a bank account anywhere without an Italian fiscal code due to an unexpected problem on the travel… to naive to think that given the fact that I was Spanish there were no barriers for me on another country even tough is inside Europe.

However, that is one of my objectives along with the SEYF, we may not be able to make huge changes but thanks to the people we can step by step change the conceptions of people from the inside, showing them that there’s nothing wrong in the differences, and that everyone can live peacefully and in harmony.

 

SEYF Italia - Eventi

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