Monday-Funday at Golądkowo

Today, Tudal, Cesar, Chien,Sylwia and me visited a high school in Golądkowo which specializes in agriculture. We had a meeting with the volunteers club and some of the teachers.

First, we have introduced ourselves and talked about our background. We also shared our opinions about Pultusk and the volunteering experience. Then we have started getting know the students better and learned what they study in the school.

 We have talked about volunteering and we thought about how we can do something together with their volunteering club. 

At the end of the meeting, we played Speed dating game where we got chance to talk to the students one by one. We asked them a couple of questions to know them better. At first, they were a little bit shy but later on the game started to be very fun for all of us. 😄

After we finished, the students showed us around the school. It was very interesting and well-designed.

 

                  

😸We all hugged each other and said goodbye until the next meeting.


-Hande Ozdemir

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Bonjour! Cześć! Hallo! Hi! Hola! Merhaba! 

There are so many ways to start an article. I must say that this one is a hard one. Last week we visited the school Zespołu Szkól nr 4 w Pułtusku where I am working during my latest 8 months. I invited my flat mates, friends and family Julia, Marie (From France) and Tuğçe (Turkey) from FIYE Pułtusk to be part of what I think was the way of say thanks to School number four and also goodbye, this is one of the latest articles I am writing for the blog, has been a pleasure to be part of this, ok let’s continue with the story. 

We agreed with the English teachers from the school to meet three different groups and spend the morning there. Was so emotional and so sentimental to be with some of my students and some students that I met before travelling with the school. I have not words to express all my gratefulness for this place and this people. 

The language café was a really good excuse to celebrate my voluntary service there and was a shock to heard questions form the students and after made the quiz know how much this kids know about culture and even political situation. They are really enthusiastic, open minded and with a lot of energy for learn new facts. The language café was not always the same, each time and each group had a different energy so we were changing some activities and of course something we had in common was the fun.

After playing, quiz, languages and learning facts about Colombia, France, Germany, Poland, Turkey and UK, we went into a concert! Was just marvelous, we came into the Sport room and all students received us with applauses. We will never forget this day at School number four: Zespołu Szkól nr 4 w Pułtusku. 

Special thanks to all languages teachers and of course the students. Without them there are no chance of having this activity.

Yours,

Angélica Camargo Flórez

EVS - Pułtusk 2016

Once we were fortune-tellers: Anrzejki in Dom Polonii

Since old days Andrzejki is a time of fortune-telling and mystic. Previously people believed that only in the night of 29^th of November all the rituals have special power that makes wishes come true and open gates for the future. Nowadays Adnrzejki is rather a good way to spent time with friends having fun by fortune-telling and usually nobody takes it seriously.

In Andrzejki Party organized by a local Social Care Center for Seniors Club in “Dom Polonii” we had a chance to show our actors abilities as far as we had roles of fortune-tellers there! Preparations started long time before this event and till the last moments we had no idea how it’s going to be, but the task was clear – collect different types of fortune-telling in our countries.

So, at 23^th of November (yes,yes – one week earlier then it is) we arrived to “Dom Polonii” to prepare our “mystic corner” for traditional palm-reading, fortune-telling by books and coffee, but we also had a surprise – unusual fortune-telling from Transylwania! 

Now more about last one. In English it’s so called dumpling fortune-telling. The idea is to put 3-5 little papers with one’s wishes into a piece of dough, then put it into boiling water and wait which dumpling will come to the top first. Of course, that one will turn into reality! It took more preparations but the result was really worthy!

Dumplings are ready!

After official part and little concert, people started to come with their wishes to know the future. We are professionals but we give only good prognoses!

The most popular questions - how long will I live and will I meet my love!

I have to say that we were not the only “wrożkas” (wrożka – a fortune-teller in Polish) in this party. On the left side there were another pavilion where worked a girl from Poznań who was doing wax fortune-telling for us as well.

What your name says about you?

It's not just a shadow - it's a gnome!

How did people react?

It was our first meeting with a Seniors Club in Pułtusk. It’s another generation with different view on modern life but they were very interested to know why we are here and what do we do in Pułtusk. Maybe, they will tell grand children about us and they will join our activities?

What did I learn?

For me the most important thing in that evening was communication. In the very beginning I was frustrated about it because there is a language barrier between us and seniors. But it’s appeared not that much difficult and even funny – at least they understood my Polish!        

Daria

Dzieżenin, here we are!

As Zsófi wrote you in her previous post this Thursday was a day of presentation in gymnasium in  Dzierżenin. And our report about this event can wait no longer!

First of all I want to admit that meeting was a result of networking from a conference for teachers of foreign languages in Dom Polonii where we run a presentation about IVS last month. Nice to realize that people want to cooperate, that means we do useful work!

So, early in the morning we started our trip to Dzierżenin, small village 15 km from Pułtusk. We were kindly met by a principal, Russian teacher pani Dorota and English teacher pani Bożena. After little talk we started our preparation. And half an hour later the projector set up, a poster with no-name girl set and children were ready to listen to Sylwia’s presentation about volunteering and work-camps! Then was a turn of a school to say about themselves. It was really nice to know that there is a voluntary club that was opened this September. Congratulations to newly-born! Children seem a little bit shy but interested so for sure we will find ways to cooperate!  

After a break we started presentations about counties. Zsófi worked with English classes and I worked with students who learn Russian. Well, we are getting more and more experienced and this time we prepared our presentations in a more interactive way. Of course it took more time and creativity, but the result was worthy. As was discussed before with teachers we divide our presentation into 3 parts: short country presentation, music and traditional cuisine. I started with asking them some simple questions about Russia and its culture and first group of 14 boys was surprisingly active!

But second group (where were only girls, by the way) was shy but they were more successful with task where they were asked to fill in the missing words in a well-known Russian song “Pesenka o medvedyakh”. And of course I can’t mention about our innovation – degustation of traditional food in the end of presentation. “How could they know cuisine if they didn’t try anything?” – decided we and went to Hungarian and Russian shops in Warsaw to buy some Hungarian sausage and mustard, so called “Baklazhanovaya ikra” (vegetable paste) and Russian sweets. After the lesson it seemed that they really like Hungarian sausages…and about “ikra” – well, as I expected after some hesitations they tried and liked it! But anyway they preferred sweets J

How did people react?

It was new experience for this gymnasium and children were really curious and interested to know who we are despite of the fact they were rather noisy in the beginning. But during the presentation I surprisingly didn’t face up with discipline problem, otherwise they were active and lively! And as a final – I was happy to know from pani Dorota that other classes are also asking for these lessons!   

What did I learn?

As I mentioned before we made our presentations more lively and interactive. It really works, we will continue this way in the future. I must say that now I can speak simple and slowly Russian – don’t laugh, it’s not that easy (it’s also a trick of experience – last two weeks I run Russian lessons in Lyceum)! But I still struggle with time; I should learn time-management!   

P.S. I’d like to say thank you to teachers and of course special thanks to principal of this gymnasium for the good organizational conditions and tasty lunch J.  I’m really looking forward our next meeting in January. 
P.P.S. photos will appear soon! 

Daria                                                     

How to celebrate the European Day of Languages

‘The European Day of Languages is 26 September, as proclaimed by the Council of Europe on 6 December 2001, at the end of the European Year of Languages (2001), which had been jointly organised by the Council of Europe and the European Union. Its aim is to encourage language learning across Europe.’

Our partner, Eulingua Centrum Językowe decided to promote languages that are not so popular to learn. From Monday to Wednesday we were visiting different schools in and around Pułtusk. On Monday, our target was Publiczne Gimnazjum Nr 1 and Liceum Ogólnokształcące im. Piotra Skargi. The next day we moved to Obryte, where we visited the primary school and also the gimnazjum. Finally on Wednesday our audience became a class in Pniewie. The students had the chance to get to know some more about Romania, Ukraine, Russia, Armenia and Hungary. It was not only about boring presentations and giving students the chance to skip a normal lesson! After introducing the country itself and its language, it was time for some quizzes and games. This way was also a good method to get their attention and to make them remember the new information.

Thursday was the day of a teachers’ conference, where we had the chance to present ourselves again and to convince teachers to work with us.

This chain of events will be closed with a city game in Pułtusk tomorrow.

What have I learned?

I hate speaking in front of many people but during the days at the schools I realized that it is not that scary to have an audience listening to you. It was also interesting to see how different people talk about their own countries. At last but not least my international vocabulary also got bigger thanks to all the presentations. 

Impact on local community
It was great to see that students were interested in getting to know these not so popular languages. They also seemed enthusiastic to learn new words.

Zsófi

EVS weekend

Pułtusk is usually a quiet little town but for some time it turned into a lively place with many programmes and a lot of people hanging around. During St Matthew Days the market square turns into a place of a festival with a huge stage, many trampolines and other facilities for kids to play.

Our part in this celebration started a couple of weeks before, when we started to plan what kind of activities we could carry out. Then, we decided to invite the new volunteers from SPW in Warsaw. We did not expect such a big enthusiasm but finally all of them decided to participate. We did a lot of brainstorming and planning, everyone worked really hard to make the best out of this weekend. We collected, invented and tested a lot of games. New sleeping mats, sleeping bags and pillows had to be bought to be able to host the volunteers. We also got T-shirts with the logo of Centrum Międzinarodowej Wymiany Młodzieży i Wolontariatu. 

Testing games was the funniest part of the preparation

We had a final preparation meeting At SPW office on Friday where we looked through the whole plan once again and also collected some more international games. After having awesome pierogi prepared by Gosia we joined the EVS Hotspot. It was an event organized by ex-EVS volunteers and the National Agency. We took part in a debate about the needs of young people and after a little break, we had an international evening concentrated on dances and songs. Unfortunately, we had to leave early as we did not want to miss our bus to Pułtusk.

On Saturday, after finalizing everything, we decided to surprise Sylwia for her birthday. Our version of ‘Sto, lat, sto lat’ was not the best one but seeing our finally 18 years old coordinator happy was worth it. Afterwards, it was time to go to the market square as the parade was about to start.

Our team of international volunteers at the parade

All schools, institutions and organizations of Pułtusk represented themselves and we took a walk around the square. We prepared with T-shirts, flags and some face painting. Some of us only had a little flag on the face, while some turned into cats and tigers. We reached our goal: we catched the attention of people. We also spent our free time actively. Cooking and playing fun games together were initial parts of our days.

The next day, the market square became a huge fair with schools, institutions and organizations presenting themselves at their own stands. Our stand was common with the Social Care Centre (MOPS).

When the person standing in the front turns around
the others have to freeze, The winner the one who
touches the wall first.

The tent was divided into zones. There was one for information about the two organizations, one for toys, books and home decoration exchange and at last but not least the unplugged zone. There the idea was to show young people ways of spending their free time without computers and TV. We had a lot of games inside and outside the tent and some music, as well. Face painting was also very popular.

Bubble-making was also one of the favourite activities, besides zośka and badminton. At the tables kids could play cards, board games and Korean game called gonggi. The volunteers were divided into two shifts and we also had two Polish helpers, Gosia and Adrian. We were happy to see that many children came to play with us and some of them stayed there almost the whole day. I was lucky enough to meet some of my little friends from the time of the workcamps in July.

Zośka is flying high. 

Now it is time to say a bigbigbig THANK YOU for everybody who somehow helped in making this happen, it was a really great weekend! J

What have I learned?

New games, how to survive an active Sunday with a little sleep the night before, how to motivate young people to spend their time in a more playful way, how to fight with the wind that is trying to destroy the tent and also ways of effective communication and exchanging ideas to cooperate with others.

Impact on local community

Thanks to these events more and more people got to know that this organization exists and I hope to see people being interested in our activities. It was a really good way to spread information and to get attention.

Zsófi