Unica Radio Raccontiamo la città che cambia
In this episode of the LIVE project, we interview Elizabete who just finished her 12 months volunteering in Cagliari with Associazione TDM 2000. She explains to us how this experience completely transformed her.
Elizabete is 24 years old and is from Latvia. She was around 15 years old when she started to be very active in different student associations and NGOs. She became familiar with the world of non-formal education and went on her first youth exchange very early. Her will to be active kept on growing during her university degree as she volunteered for different events, went on training courses and even worked as a project manager for a while. After graduating, she travelled alone, participated in international trainings and events, and volunteered with Workaway in a cat shelter in Greece. After that, Elizabete knew she wanted to participate in the European Solidarity Corps (ESC) and settle somewhere for a while.
Her first experience in Cagliari was for the event International Summer Week organised by TDM 2000 for which she stayed for a month. After that experience, she grew so attached to the place that she knew she had to return. She thus came back for a long-term ESC and ended up staying 12 other months in Cagliari. During that time, Elizabete mainly worked on a project called “LIVE: promoting volunteering and human rights” which aims to promote both topics, mainly through digital platforms such as with these specific podcasts for example, and then also by going to schools and talking to various groups of people to promote European Solidarity Corps in Sardinia. Besides, she was also involved in youth exchanges, training courses, and conferences. She’s also involved in a large-scale partnership project for which she develops educational material on consent.
“I don’t think there’s anything you can particularly lose just by trying”
Since the first day of her ESC project, Elizabete felt like she was really passionate about what she was doing. Of course, she experiences ups and downs but she wouldn’t change her experience for anything. She discovered how much she likes the field of youth work and that this path is the one she wants to keep for the next few years. She highly recommends living an experience abroad, and even though she acknowledges this is not for everyone she also says “Like everything in life, I don’t think there’s anything you can particularly lose just by trying”. Learn more about Elizabete’s experience with ESC by listening to this podcast!
Don’t forget to follow the LIVE project on Instagram at @volunteering.live!
