Marta's Project

Hello everyone!

My name is Marta. I come from Croatia and I am 25 years old. I have started my EVS project in November and will stay until the end of August. My project includes working in kindergarten with preschool children as an assistant to the teachers. Children are from 4 to 6 years old.

My task is to help the teachers in the everyday life of children in kindergarten. Usually that would be preparing for the activities or cleaning afterwards, helping children with their assignments, when we are going outside...Currently, I am in the group that has children with special needs.

The biggest challenge that I am facing is the language. I have never learned Polish and even though it is in the same language family as Croatian (Slavic languages), it is not so easy to learn it. We had organised Polish lessons which gave us a good basis for further learning. Both, Polish lessons and kindergarten helped me to work on my language skills. I am trying to talk in Polish as much as possible with children, teachers, in the shops...There are some struggles but we manage to understand each other. This type of situations also made me use more the non-verbal communication, body language for example. It is nice to learn a new language and people appreciate it more if you try to speak their language.

Until now, I had a chance to get to know the culture better and also the way in which kindergarten functions. I have seen some customs and holidays that are not common in Croatia such as ‘Dzień babci i dziadka’ (Grandma and Grandpa Day) – teachers with children prepared recitals and gifts and afterwards they had a short feast;

Andrzejki (Saint Andrews day in Poland) – a day of mysterious parties with the candles and future telling games. Children and teachers dressed up in costumes and played some games;

The breaking of Christmas wafer or ‘opłatek’ in Polish during Christmas show in kindergarten. Each person has one and you go from person to person wishing them all the best for Christmas and in the New Year. It is something we do not do in Croatia and I believe it is a nice tradition.

I enjoy my stay in Poland and hope that it will continue to be as good as it has been. In my opinion, learning about new cultures and their traditions is very interesting and I’m excited to see what else is yet to come.

Your Croatian volunteer Marta 😊

https://www.facebook.com/fiyepolska
https://www.instagram.com/fiyepolska/