Hello everyone, my name is Chiara and I have been an international volunteer with the program ESC (European Solidarity Corps).

At the venerable age of 28, after a degree and local volunteering in my hometown of Marsala in Sicily, I decided to have one of those experiences that, in hindsight, I would repeat 10 times over.
The opportunity to do long-term international volunteering came at a time in my life full of uncertainty and given my desire to have an experience abroad and work in contact with children and adolescents, I decided to leave for this “adventure”.

I arrived in Badalona, ​​a Spanish city in the province of Barcelona, ​​last January 2024 and stayed there until December of the same year. During this time I participated in different projects of the association la Rotllana. When I arrived at the association I started working in the communication section of the association making available my creativity and my knowledge of graphics (which are not much, only Canva, but I do quite well with this program!) and I participated both actively and in support of the recording of podcasts of Radio Pangea Rotllana.

I have also worked directly with teenagers, organizing activities of different kinds with them and for them. I have worked with elementary school children teaching English with non-formal education methodologies and, still at the non-formal teaching level, I have collaborated with an adult school partner of the association, helping students to practice spoken English. One of the activities carried out that went out of my comfort zone was definitely the presentation of a music competition (in Spanish, of course!) during the summer activities organized by the association and I must say that it was one of the many experiences that I liked and enjoyed the most, so much so that I repeated it for the concert organized a few months later.

These experiences help you grow and improve both on a professional level by learning new things and improving skills that already belong to us, and on a personal level. Living away from home but especially away from your country is certainly scary, if you don't know the language you are afraid of communicating and not being understood but even knowing it sometimes you find it difficult to communicate.

When you leave, even though you have a support network that is both your sending association and the association that welcomes you, you will still find yourself facing uncertainties and insecurities but during the months that you live abroad you will establish deep bonds with people that you will carry with you for life and I believe that this is one of the most beautiful aspects of these experiences.

So if anyone reading this is hesitating whether or not to do this experience, my advice is absolutely do it! It's normal to be afraid of taking such a big step but I can assure you that it's absolutely worth it.

Chiara Pipitone