Hello there! My name is Ayşe. Since January 2024, I have been working as a volunteer in Hannover, Germany as part of the European Solidarity Corps (ESC). In this blog post, I would like to tell you about my experiences during my volunteering here.
First of all, I would like to talk about the organization I work for, Our aim is to encourage people, especially young people, to turn their faces towards democracy. We have many projects in this direction. We visit schools and teach students about local politics, we simulate parliaments and elections, we stand at various events and offer interesting and encouraging activities. When we are in the office, we usually work on what needs to be prepared before and after the project. This can be organizing the materials we will use at the events or reporting.
The biggest problem I had here was of course the language barrier. I had some knowledge of German before coming here, but unfortunately it was not enough for me. There are many other volunteers in the office besides me, but they are all here with different volunteering projects (BFD and FÖJ), I am the only ESC volunteer here and the only non-native German speaker. Therefore, it is sometimes difficult to socialize in German with the other volunteers in the office. But they are all really sweet and help me with my German. I can usually understand and complete the tasks given to me, but sometimes I need to speak English to be able to actually socialize.
I would like to talk a little bit about Hannover, the city where I live and which I love very much. Actually, Hannover is one of the big cities in Germany, but since I grew up in Istanbul, I see it as a peaceful and small city away from chaos. And it is green! The fact that the city is so green and organized makes every activity here enjoyable. Sometimes just walking around the city is very peaceful. In my opinion, Hannover is a really beautiful and livable place both as a city and for its people. I can also say that it is very vegan friendly. Even in a big city like Istanbul, I have a hard time finding cafes and restaurants with vegan options, but in Hannover I don’t even have to look for them most of the time.
Besides, I have a very different social life here than in Turkey. In Turkey, my social life was mostly made up of friends from high school and university. Here, I had the opportunity to meet various people from various countries. In addition to my office mates, the seminar I attended as part of ESC was very useful in this respect. My seminar was in Hamburg. I believe this was a great chance for me because Hamburg is a very beautiful city and I had the opportunity to stay there for a week for my seminar. I also met some lovely people and I still keep in touch with them. I can say that this was one of the biggest contributions of this project for me.
I also try to attend various other trainings as much as I can outside of my ESC trainings. In April I participated in a human rights training in Hattenville, France. Another aim of this training was to bridge the cultures of Germany, France and Georgia. Therefore, there were also many participants from Georgia. It was great to get to know my neighbors better and I hope to meet them again soon.
In June, I attended a workshop on abolition of the death penalty organized by the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, France. It was a unique experience for me. It was very special for me to see the Council of Europe and to receive training from the experts invited by the Council of Europe, and I met lovely people from different countries. This will remain in my memory as an experience I will never forget.
Finally, of course, I try to travel as much as possible 🙂 Since I arrived I have had the chance to visit various cities in Germany, such as Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich and Hamburg. I have also visited France, Austria, Belgium and Netherlands. I hope to visit more places before the end of my project.
I have had many good experiences since January and I am sure there will be more until the end of my project. I would like to thank my sending organization Pi Youth Association for this beautiful experience.