Rethink, Reshape and Awake the Community in

1. Rethink, Reshape and Awake the Community in Miratejo ESC in Rato-ADCC Hanna Chyrun

2. A year ago I started my volunteering journey in Portugal, in organization called Rato-ADCC. I arrived to Seixal, which is a city close to Lisbon, in the middle of February, when the weather was still quite cold. What surprised me first was the amount of green I could see from my balcony. Comparing to dark and grey Poland in this season, it was something so alive and bright.

3. My organization, Rato-ADCC, specializes in informatics and promotion of modern technologies. We did informatics workshops for seniors, sessions in schools about different social challenges, workshops for kids during summer, took part in local festival and many-many other things. But let me tell it step by step.

4. School Activities During the project, I’ve visited many schools with different activities. There were workshops done about Human Rights, Environmental Consciousness, Seed Balls and Painting with Plants, How to develop your CV, workshops promoting volunteering etc. During sessions, many times I had to present myself and the project in front of the class. At the beginning it was quite stressful, but with time I was feeling more and more confident.

5. Summer activities for children During summer, we organized many activities for children from the local community. There were sewing workshops, embroidery workshops, how to make pins.

6. My Workshops During this time, I also had a chance to create my own workshops. I did a yoga workshop for kids in the summer. It was very nice as the session was in the park, outside, so we all had some fresh air and an opportunity to lie on the grass. Then, when a school year has started, I also did Meditation against Stress Workshop for teenagers. We were working with different breathing techniques to calm down, discussing the benefits of proper breathing and meditation and practicing, of course.

7. Trainings in the organization Besides the workshops mentioned above, we also had many activities happening in the office. For example, Chá das TIC. It is a series of training for seniors, where we were teaching them how to use a computer and how to work with other technologies.

8. Trainings in the organization Also, there were many trainings organized for the volunteers: sound editing, video editing, camera workshops, 3D printer workshops, coding etc. We also had a chance to learn DART/Flutter for a couple of weeks with a trainer from Google.

9. JAH Moment JAH Moment is a big project we were working on during my whole volunteering. Due to this project, Rato had a chance to buy lots of necessary equipment and create an open-space for local community with lots of tools for creativity, like carpenter tools, 3D printers, embroidery and sewing machines, pin machines, multimedia equipment etc. It was very exciting to learn how to work with all these!

10. JAH Moment One of our tasks, as volunteers, was to create tutorial videos for the equipment bought for JAH Moment. We were making scripts, recording the videos and then editing them. All the videos were published on Rato-ADCC YouTube channel.

11. Basic Russian Vocabulary Videos Another task I had was to make a playlist of Basic Russian Vocabulary videos for Portuguese people to be able to learn Russian. I was working on this together with another intern called Gonçalo. This was my first experience of talking in front of the camera, which was very stressful at the beginning, but in the end I consider it to be a very valuable experience.

12. OpenEUropa Podcast One of my favourite activities was to make OpenEUropa Podcast. This is a podcast with the other volunteers of the association or any other Erasmus social workers. It was always fun to do this! I enjoyed interviewing people and listen to their experience. I also had to edit this podcast after and manage platforms for publishing it.

13. Portuguese Lessons in the School Every week, 1–3 times, we had our Portuguese lessons. For this, we were going to a local high school to the cutest teacher on Earth! Her name is Hermínia, and she is always very positive and shining, these classes were always a good moment in a day.

14. Portuguese lessons for Local Muslim Community Rato-ADCC also provides Portuguese lessons for local Muslim community, in which we were able to participate. It was an interesting experience as before I never had a close contact with people from Pakistan, for example.

15. On-arrival training course and Mid-term training course During volunteering, each volunteer has to participate in two training courses. This is an amazing experience, where you can meet other volunteers from different countries, who are doing all the variety of projects, you can share your experience and reflex about the program in general. I really enjoyed that time as I met lots of beautiful people there, with whom we became friends later. My first training course took part in Viseu and the second one was in Braga, so it was also a good opportunity for travelling!

16. Exploring Portugal A big part of my volunteering experience was travelling! During this time, I had an opportunity to visit many beautiful places in Portugal, like Porto, Braga, Viseu, Peniche, Nazaré, Sintra, Lisbon, Sesimbra, Setúbal, Évora.

17. Exploring Portugal But of course, my favourite travel destination was Açores islands!

18. To summarize, ESC was an amazing unforgettable experience! I spent in Portugal the whole year, and I didn’t regret taking this decision even for a moment! Volunteering is a great opportunity to meet new people, develop your skills, open new talents and explore new places! Thank you Rato-ADCC and FRSP!