Claudia spent 11 months working as an ESC volunteer in a nursery called “À Petits Pas”, in the heart of Pau, France.
Passionate by languages and children, Claudia has a degree in Translation and Interpretation and a Masters in Secondary School Teaching. She had previously visited the city of Pau a few years before, so when she saw the opportunity to come back and live in the city she discovered, she didn’t think twice before applying to the offer. Moreover, she was lucky enough to find an opportunity in a nursery, where she enjoyed working with other young women and small children.
According to Claudia, “It was an amazing experience for me. It gave me the opportunity to explore a different environment working on something new”.
During these months, she was accommodated in a big house, 20 minutes’ walk from the city center. She shared the house with two Spanish girls and one Italian. It was one of the best parts of her experience, “The most important thing for me was being surrounded by amazing people. I was lucky to live in a big house with other volunteers that became not only my friends but also my family. We had such a great time even during the lockdown, we cooked a lot, we celebrated, and we did a lot of things together”.
Despite the fact of doing the ESC volunteer program during the pandemic and the lockdown in France, Claudia still had the possibility to go to work, so it didn’t make much of a difference for her. Another aspect of her volunteering which was really amazing was the fact of living so close to all the other volunteers: Mauléon, Hendaye, Anglet… “I feel really lucky to have met the volunteers living around us. Each weekend we planned something together and we spent the whole year moving around”.
When asked to describe her experience in three words, she chose the following ones: friends – travel – opportunity
