Dear potential readers,
I
know you have missed me but these last few weeks have been full of activities,
holidays, national celebrations and one special arrival. And occasionally our
mood tends to have small fluctuations, because ups and downs are also part of
our lives. Working voluntarily with children can be a very demanding procedure,
since children really learn so fast that leaves me with a feeling of
inadequacy. How many ideas can I come up with to keep them excited? How much
knowledge can I transcend to them? Is it
enough? What if I run out of ideas? These ideas pass through my mind quite many
times, making me experience this personal stress which motivates me and scares
me at the same time. And every morning, before the children come to Atolye, I wonder
whether everything is going to roll well and every time they leave, I feel that
I shouldn't have had so much stress in the first place. But who says that
volunteering is an easy thing?
Thursday
had come and it was about time for us to occupy ourselves with making our
own t-shirts. I got inspired for this
activity from my involvement in a voluntary informal group in Greece ,for the
rights of the lgbt's, called Good as Youth. It was almost mid of May and we, in
Good As Youth, had to find a way to fund the activities of the upcoming month
and here came the idea to make our own t-shirts, sell them and use this small
amount of money for our goals. One unwritten principal of our organization was
that nobody would spend his own money in order to cover the organization’s
expenses. Every activity should be covered financially through a collective
effort and this was what making our own t-shirt was about to mean- this
collective effort. Sharing this idea with the children was important for me,
because it felt like I was offering not only an ideological background to them,
but also practically showing them that they could do something similar in the
future, if they decide to participate in an activistic organization of their
choice. Thus, myself and the children had already been to Kemeralti in Konak on
Wednesday, in order to buy cheap but quality t-shirts and special colors for
clothes and we had the entire Thursday for finishing our plan.
I
have to admit, although I had done it before, it was hard for me to pick the
topic, which I would try to imprint on the t-shirt. And in the end I realized
that, every topic that we had chosen, had a really special meaning for each of
us. If I didn't know the children and if I hadn't spent a lot of time with
them, I wouldn't really be able to understand this connection of the topic with
their own personality. After two and a half months, from the beginning of my
EVS, I am very pleased to find out that I have been close to the children in
such a way, that I am now able to give meaning to their actions and sayings.
B.
chose to paint a giraffe, because she is a giraffe lover and A. painted the
small signs that every camera has, because she wants to be a photographer one
day. E. Painted a mermaid, because she always refers it to our talks. Maybe she
feels like a mermaid herself or even mermaid reminds her who she wants to be-
sensitive and dynamic- like fairytale mermaids. P. chose to write the word
“peace” on the t-shirt, painting a bird -as a symbol of peace. I chose to paint
a big chubby, sensitive and sweet blue monster, which is biking in the sky,
holding colorful balloons, because I feel that sometimes people tend to
perceive me as a very serious and critical person, while, deeply inside, I am a
clumsy, sensitive and small cute monster. Okay, here is where I stop the
description, because you probably have already felt that I am 12 when I am
already 23 years old! :P
working for the T-shirts P. t-shirt
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