My name is Odysseas Fotopoulos I am 24 years old from Greece. I arrived in Palermo in the middle of June and I do one EVS project in Palermo for the association InformaGiovani.
This project it is called “Building bridges of culture” and is about the culture of Palermo and how this helps the people with different background and different origin to communicate and to create relationships.

   

I also helped in many kind of activities organized by InformaGiovani, for example youth exchange and workcamps. During the workcamps I was a helper of the coordinator.
One workcamp had taken place at Isola delle Femmine a small town a few minutes from the Palermo. Our role was too clean the island from the garbages and to plating plants on this island and in this way to keep it alive and to help to survive the migratory birds that use it. In the second one our role was to help the teachers of a school to make some repairs and painting on the building and school gear (chairs, desk, blackboards…). I enjoy all of these activities, I learnt many things, I visited in this way some nice places and I met new friends from many different countries. And also I really like the manual work.

 

Something that wasn’t easy to manage was the difficulties to communicate and to create one common way to understand each other but somehow in the end everything was possible with a good will from all of us.
Also I am teaching guitar for kids and adults at Centro Tau. Teaching guitar is something I know well since playing guitar is one of my passion, and I really like the idea to give to someone the opportunity to learn guitar.

In reality this experience so far it’s not only one opportunity to improve my English and to learn another language, Italian in this case.
It’s one opportunity to socialize if this means to meet new persons, some of them new friend, but the most important thing to start to understand more about one new culture. How this new society works. What kind of traditions that people have. The history of the place. And many other things.

With this EVS project I have also the chance for myself to organize what I want to do in the future. For example I have the time and the space to practise classical guitar and to search for my master degree in classical guitar. Otherwise perhaps my options would have been less.