On our first day in Metlika, we were told that we had to think of a project to work on during our EVS term. As we learned, a project was something or a series of things we had to do on our EVS term to contribute to the place and facilitate the exchange of skills and knowledge between the volunteer and the organization and community.
It took us a while to figure out how we can contribute. First of all, MJ and I have no particular expertise and it would be our first time to work independently with our own ideas in this environment. Second, it really took us a while to determine what they really needed because we came from a third-world country where many people don’t even have access to the basic needs such as food and shelter. Here they had food, shelter, education; they had soccer and dance and music classes after, some art workshops etc. It’s hard to imagine what else we can actually offer them that they don’t already have or can’t do better. Of course, there are still a lot of things that we can do but MJ and I wanted to do something that we could offer best as Filipinos.
So, we started with assessing the needs of the people there. And after many days and nights spent hanging out with a lot of young people, having beers/wine with older folks, having hot chokoladas with teenage girls over boy-talk and family problems, and many shared rides to the city with strangers, we have noticed one recurrent theme. People there complain a lot about their lives very often and don’t know how lucky they are compared to other places around the world. Please don’t get me wrong, this is not our own conclusion. This is the observation of about 9 out of 10 people we talked to, about their own people. And we didn’t even have to ask -they just said it whenever we talked about life is in the Philippines. So we thought, there we had it! We became very interested to work around it.
Finally, we came down to this idea: to organize a small event in Metlika in which we would talk about life on the other side of the world. We thought that this is precisely what we can offer best –our differences, our being “Filipino”. Aside from talking about the Philippines, since we have friends from India, Nepal and China (who we met at the On-Arrival Training), we thought it would be interesting to hear about life in their countries also. (We had invited 2 Syrian refugees who were now living in Slovenia as well but they were unable to come). In the event, we wouldn’t be talking about culture and religion and traditional dances, but rather the more common themes of everyday life, such as family, housing conditions, everyday commute to school or work, ways to make a living, past time/entertainment – things that are more relatable to the common person. Our objective was not to show how pitiful life is in our countries and tell people to stop complaining. Rather, we simply wanted to make them more aware and hope that it would have its positive impact –either to make all of us more grateful, helpful, or kinder, more open-minded or knowledgeable or simply more interested to look into it further. It’s a small effort but we were hoping that it would be a start of something. And, as food is always a good way to integrate people, we decided we’d cook some traditional dishes to share with everyone.
So we called up our friends from Koper and invited them to come to Metlika. We also thought it’d be cool for Metlikans to meet people from these countries and vice versa. (Plus, finally, an excuse to bring them there and have them cook us some traditional Indian food! )
The day of the event came and with the help of a fellow volunteer and people from the organization, we were able to arrange everything smoothly. Everything went as we hoped except that there were less people than expected and less locals in the crowd. There were mostly international interns working at a camp near Metlika. Due to our late invitations, not so many people knew about it.
Good thing, the interns came and filled-in. So we went on and presented each our countries with our Powerpoint presentations. After that, we had a semi-buffet of the different dishes we prepared.
Overall, I think it went well as many of them came up to us to congratulate us on the success of the event. They said they really enjoyed it. One Polish girl expressed how it was such an eye-opener and how happy she was that she came. I personally enjoyed sharing about our country and loved learning about the others too. I can only hope that what we did that night would have further repercussions.
Now, I’d like to dedicate this portion of the blog to acknowledge our friends who presented with us because I will never forget the support and friendship they showed us. We were surprised and overwhelmed over how genuine and dedicated and serious they were on helping us with this project. We haven’t known each other very long, and asking them for the presentations and to travel all the way to Metlika from Koper and cook and present in front of everyone was quite a lot to ask. Especially that, they were also busy with their own projects. Despite all that, they put a lot of time and effort into it. On one hand, it was really challenging working together given our differences. It was very stressful but in the end, they all delivered much more than we expected and could ever ask for. (I really, really love you guys! )
I learned so much from the whole process of making this project. I also learned about my strengths and weaknesses. I saw how scared I was to take responsibility and lead the project yet also saw that I can actually do it. So it was a humbling experience but also from which I gained a little more courage and confidence. I’m really hoping to learn more and get better at this and do more projects in the future.
Chanieli G. Gadon – Philippines