Neslişah, 23 years old, from Turkey, EVS Combinaning Generations in Petrinja, Croatia, coordinate by IKS
The reason I chose this project…
was to better understand the differences of generations and to find solutions. It was very exciting for me to come to Croatia with this project. I knew it would be a great experience to see a new country and meet new people and learn new cultures.
« We’re all bowling
at The Elderly home,
going to Home for mentally
ill adults and playing bingo
with them »
I participated in many projects in the city of Petrinja, where I came as a volunteer. We went to blind people and played tic tac toe together. We’re all bowling at The Elderly home, going to Home for mentally ill adults and playing bingo with them. A lot of good feelings coming out. Volunteering is exciting and peaceful. It’s a great feeling to touch people’s lives, do them a favor and make them feel good about themselves.
« They teach me Croatian
while I teach them Turkish »
My project is combining generations. I aim to survey my project and find out how we can combine generations even with the big time gap between them. At the end of my project I will analyse and report this survey, which will be attended by people of all ages. In addition, I teach Turkish to children and young people who want to learn Turkish in Petrinja. They teach me Croatian while I teach them Turkish. When we were teaching each other languages, we learned that we had many similar words.
In my life outside of my project
I have had the opportunity to visit many parts of Croatia. I traveled and got to know Petrinja. Talking to the people who live here, I learned about their way of life, their meals, their weddings, Christmas events and many more. We introduced our own cultures to each other. I made friends from all over the world and shared a house with them. I had the opportunity to see the proclaimed best advent in Europe (3 years in a row) in Zagreb.
3 words about my European volunteering:
combining generations, intercultural, discovery
