A journey of volunteering, travel, and growth

Hello again from Sirvintos Youth Center, Lithuania! My name is Eren. I am about to finish my volunteering here, and I wanted to share my experiences with you.

In my last blog, I told about my experience for my first month. Now I will tell the rest. After the first month, something has started to change, I started to get used to here further. At the end of October, we met again with other volunteer friends that I met in on-arrival training. It was good to see them again. On 31st October, we had a big Halloween event. I became Dracula 🙂 There were many youngsters joined our event. Together with my co-workers, we did some activities, related to Halloween theme. It was really great and fun.

The weather is slowly getting colder… Maybe I should be prepared for Lithuanian winter. They say it can be around -20°C. It is really cold for me, who is coming from Aegean Region in Turkey :))

In early November, I planned a trip to Milan, Prague and Vienna. It was great to feel Meditteranean weather in Italy. In Prague and Vienna, I met my friends from Turkiye. Furthermore, in Prague train station, I came across one of my friends from Erasmus study exchange that was 2 years ago, the world is really small :))

After this trip, there were two training courses near to Sirvintos which was organized by our organization. Me and one of my colleagues were volunteers for those two weeks for the courses. It was a great experience, I met so many people around my age, from different countries. It was a different experience for me, because in the past I participated in training courses but as a participant, and now, I was from the organization side :))

Between these training courses, we had an activity in Musninkai Gymnasium as our youth center. Each of us (volunteers) did presentation and activities related to their home country. I presented Turkiye and told them our cuisine, about Atatürk, about our country’s geography, and some interesting things, and quiz activity. It was great. The students were interested.

After these training courses, the Christmas vibe started to appear in Lithuania, like all in Europe 🙂 In this light, we started to make decorations, and prepare activities for the big Christmas night in youth center. In a short time, we were gonna have the event. We decorated a big Christmas tree in “Kupulas” (which is a glass building near to center). Fun fact, we were struggling to hang the lights on the tree, and after we did it, the cable was ripped off. And again, and again trying… Finally we made it!!

And… event day arrived. We were prepared well for the Christmas vibe. Many youngsters came, and we had activities for the night. We played games, like musical chair, games with candles… So many!

At the same time, we continue to go to mobile work, twice a week to Gelvonai and Musninkai towns near to Sirvintos. Sometimes we go to school to have activities with students in school time, sometimes we go to our youth centers. It is good to see that the youngsters living in rural area also can benefit from our youth center’s activities.

We also had a big Christmas event for mobile work in Gelvonai, also youngsters from Musninkai. We did some activies, including games, role playing with Christmas themes, games with ball. It was amazing.

After the event, we had off days for Christmas. I went to Krakow, Poland first, and met my friend. From Krakow, we headed to… Of course wonderful Vienna! After enjoying some days in Vienna, we went to Budapest, Hungary. It was amazing. It was not my first time in Budapest, but first time to see in Christmas period. It is amazing in every season!

From Budapest, we headed to Ljubljana, Slovenia. It was great to see the Central European-Balkan mixed Slovenian capital! This city has a different vibe, it reminded me of Zürich, Switzerland.

After this trip, we came back to Vienna, and had New Year’s Eve in Stephansplatz Square in Vienna! It was amazing to enter 2025 in the heart of Vienna. After all this trip, I came back to Lithuania to continue my volunteering.

Leaving the New Year’s Eve behind, I started my Italian speaking club every Tuesday. I was motivated and I liked it because I could use my Italian skills to teach it to someone else. The participants are motivated too, and seeing them coming, makes me motivated too. Besides Italian speaking club, we started to prepare activities for Valentine’s Day in February. To be honest, January was a boring month for me, everything was so routine.

Also, at the end of January, I had a trip to Copenhagen, Denmark. It was great to see Denmark again. I also visited Malmö, Sweden, which is just 30 minutes train ride away Copenhagen.

When I came back to Lithuania, I felt the coldness of the weather literally in my inner side. How can it be that much colder than Denmark? I was freezing… For many days the weather was minus degrees, for some long time the sun did not exist 🙂 In this moment, you may need vitamine supplement. Then I understood what they were talking about Lithuanian winter.

After this trip, we continued preparing the Valentine’s Day event, and I had Italian speaking clubs. In my Italian speaking club, the one before Valentine’s Day, I did pizza baking activity for that week. I gave Italian verbs & words for kitchen context, they learned Italian vocabulary while baking the pizza. They liked the event.

On 13rd February, we did Valentine’s Day event in the youth center. Unfortunately, the participance did not meet our expectations, but we had some youngsters, and we enjoyed small games & heart shaped pizza baking activity 🙂

And here we came to my last month… Like every experience I have had so far, it is the hard time to leave the country you have lived for some time and you are going back to your home country. I have some trips left to Poland, Spain, and Morocco. I am doing my last Italian speaking clubs and other activities… It is a weird feeling that I was here for 5 months and actually I just got used to the country and I am leaving in 3 weeks. I want to say thanks to Sirvintos Youth Center, all the workers and volunteers. I am grateful because in this experience I learned so many things about life and activities with youngsters. I recommend all of you to experience such projects in another country for a while, you will be surprised how you will change and broaden your vision, and you will see you will be on your own. This was my second time volunteering, my first one was in Romania, and both countries and experiences contributed to me somehow.

Maybe see you in another volunteering experience!!