Volunteering: the stage of a journey and the choice of the right luggage Volunteers say

"Hi! My name is Carla, I am 28 years old and I am a volunteer in the communications department of the Asociación Mundus in Barcelona. "

Precisely one year ago, in September 2019, my trip to Barcelona began: I lived my 10-month volunteer project in the communication department of Asociación Mundus, a Spanish NGO that deals with international mobility.
Since that time, I have repeated the presentation with which I began this testimony many times. I started speaking in English, gradually all the words were replaced by Spanish. The experiences I lived increased as did everything I learned over the months.

I returned to Italy two months ago and I still feel all the emotions that accompanied me in this intense experience.
At the end of June, I was packing suitcases and boxes to leave Barcelona and return here to my city, Trani.
Among the boxes and suitcases, I carefully kept a bag that was given to me on the first day of volunteering.
I really like it because it is a bag with a design representing a shopping list. On the other a question says "What do you choose?" - What you choose? And there follows a list of values ​​such as love, inclusion, feminism, interculturalism, diversity, tolerance, justice.

I would like to use this grant to describe what European volunteering, European Solidarity Corps, has meant for me.
I believe all the values ​​and actions that are on that list are specific to volunteering and I have experienced them every day during my project.
Working in the communication department allowed me to live the challenge of telling how beautiful it is to overcome our borders and therefore our limits, how important it is to listen to the stories of others, how beautiful diversity is.
Working in an NGO that deals with international mobility has allowed me above all to learn about projects that can build a better future: projects that aim to create development in other continents, projects that help migrants build a future in Europe and projects for young people looking for their first job in the difficult world of work.
I also had the wonderful opportunity to teach Italian to some boys and some girls who will have an internship experience here in Italy.
However, the most important thing was to reflect on who I am and who I want to be. Volunteering for me was my first experience abroad and I would really like to remember it as a milestone in a journey that represents my entire history. In this stage I understood what the right baggage is to continue the journey in the direction we like best.

I like to think of the bag they gave me on the first day of volunteering as the ideal baggage: thanks to the experience I have lived, it is full of the values ​​I want to take with me for the next steps of my future. Values ​​of volunteering that are now part of my life.
For now I have returned to Italy, however, with in mind the desire to mark other stops around Europe. The volunteers who arrived in Molfetta help me to develop this desire and to make me feel still "on the road" and part of this story of "wide borders" that is European volunteering.