Mert’s activity in Portugal is over

The activity of Mert Ayduman, who went to Paredes, Portugal for a long term with our European Solidarity Corps project “Dream Big” has ended. Let’s listen to the adventure of Mert, who served as a volunteer in our Portuguese partner Embaixada da Juventude for 11 months!

 

I was the first long-term volunteer in my organisation. Throughout the process, I contributed to their development with the feedback requested from me. I have been in both the organization and the participant side of the events. Thanks to the events I organized, I introduced my institution and made new people aware of the work of my institution. I developed the capacity of my institution by telling hundreds of people I met about my institution and making them aware of the opportunities it offers. I created a positive image for my institution by representing my institution well in the events I participated in.

I developed and produced community systems and policies in the volunteer home. I made it easy for new volunteers to adapt to the home. I told the volunteers in their first months what they needed to know with my experience so far. (everything from the bus times they will use to get home, to my knowledge about Portugal and Europe)

I was a translator for some Turkish volunteers where necessary. I gave English lessons. I gave Portuguese lessons for all the volunteers, I taught new things outside the lessons.

I produced various games, came up with various plans, made a positive social contribution to my institution.

I taught my culture.

What did it do for me?
I encountered scenarios that I would not encounter in my normal life, met people, gained information that I could not.

I learned a new culture, lived in it.

I learned Portuguese. As a result, I have come to a better understanding of other Latin languages.

English has become my mother tongue.

I have lived a stress-free year.

At the end of my program, we decided to work with my coordinator.

My leadership and organizational skills have increased.

I became more aware of my world citizenship.

I am more confident now.

In fact, I saw that some things were not as difficult as I had enlarged.

I made very good friends.

I started eating healthier.

I developed my art skills.

I have grown personally. When I compare myself to 1 year ago, I can see the differences.

I became aware of my wishes.

I learned the basics of photography and videography.

Here are my tasks!

• Turkish Recipes BookWe created a Turkish recipes book for International Day of the Book and we published it via Embaixada da Juventude’s(EJ’s) social media platforms.
• Video About EJ HouseI filmed videos and created a video to practise my editing skills. It was a minute shorter than my original plan.
• Portuguese LessonsI attended Portuguese lessons once a week, I also studied and practiced my own. According to OLS, I am B1 level in Portuguese now.
• English LessonsI prepared and teached English to other volunteers. Also I attended English lessons that are organized by the other volunteers.https://www.instagram.com/p/COOBUaAhVAy/
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• Duolingo

I created Duolingo contests and motivation groups to learn languages with other volunteers. It was a success, most of the people are still doing regularly, personally I have 56 days of streak.

• Elderly House

We went to a local elderly house(Ser Social) 6 times during my 10 months. I prepared and facilitated activities for them, these activities involved:

– Teaching Turkish culture by Turkish card game(Pişti), Turkish coffee, Turkish song.

– Organizing a competition of bowling made out of used plastic bottles and a volleyball

– Playing different kind of games with them including Portuguese games.

I also chatted and spent time with them a lot and made friends. I also exchanged letters with an old lady whose name is Alice da Fruta.

• Community GardenI brainstormed and created ideas about the community garden which is located in the EJ house, such as building a place for bees, deciding and planting seeds to the garden, shaping the bushes, cutting the grass, using used coffee as fertilizer, watering the plants, dealing with the weeds that are growing in the walking path, learning general knowledge about gardening…
• Output Bee HotelWriting a KA1 project for EJMe and 3 other volunteers wrote a youth exchange project about physical and mental health with EJ as host organization. Unfortunately it did not get accepted but it was a good experience

• Implementation of EJ ProjectsI helped Embaixada da Juventude about their local and international projects. For international projects I created a database of 30 energizers/ice breakers and I also planned activities for local and international projects to present on the projects.On July, in EJ house there was an international ESC group volunteering project which involved 30 people. For that project I planned and facilitated energizers and activities to do for the participants. https://www.instagram.com/p/CRzcrNsgQe9/

  On September, in EJ house there was a local project for youth, Semana da Juventude, I also prepared energizers and activities. https://www.instagram.com/p/CUfyMu6ILZ1/

  On October, for a local ESC project of EJ, our goal was to bring attention to homeless people and to their struggles. In the World Homeless Day, I pretended to be a homeless and asked for money from people in the most touristic place of Porto and managed to see a glimpse of their struggles and their emotions in a minimal sense. All of the experience was recorded and all the money raised went straight to homeless people. Our team filmed the whole thing and they shared through social media channels. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVLhrmVKNks/

  On October, for a local ESC project of EJ, I volunteered to be shirtless on the streets of Paredes to invite women to write the disrespectful things that men said to them during their lives on me. It was an eye opening thing reading the stuff written on me. Our team filmed the whole thing and they shared through social media channels. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVdjMAJK3xH/

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• ActingEJ has staff who is talented at making short videos and movies. Also EJ creates videos for their representation and dissemination of their projects. I took part in most of the videos and I acted in the videos. 
• QuidditchIn Turkey I play a game that is called quidditch, which is a sports game that is a mix of handball, rugby and dodgeball. Also it requires a lot of material to play. In Portugal I missed playing the sport and there were no quidditch being played. With the help of my organization I managed to buy and build the equipments for quidditch and I started quidditch in Portugal. For a local project of Embaixada, I facilitated an activity about quidditch. I teached 25 participants how to play quidditch and we played. I also started to create a team in Porto for my personal project, I advertised about quidditch training and gathered people to play in Porto. I teached 20 people how to play the game.
• Gaming WednesdaysI created gaming Wednesdays. It was a project to gather the community online and play online videogames where everyone can get to meet each other and be in an international environment without the fear of covid. In these days I proposed and moderated the games that we played.  https://www.instagram.com/p/CStnoB_qeOR