Interview with Marcela Kremlová, Thea's supervisor

For today's interview we invited Ms. Marcela Kremlova, supervisor of the German volunteer Thea, who works at the Silesian Diakonia school in Bohumín.

1) Mrs. Kremlova, could you briefly introduce yourself and give us an overview of your work at the Silesian Diakonia school?

I would love to. I am 24 years old and I have been working since 2020 as a teaching assistant and educator in the special school of Silesian Diakonia. I enjoy this work and find it fulfilling, even though it is very demanding.  At the moment I am in the position of teaching assistant and as mentioned I am a supervisor of Thea.

My work is very diverse. At our workplace in Nový Bohumín we have two primary school classes and a kindergarten. Basically, I could say that I am the right hand of the class teacher. I help in teaching, I sit with the pupil who needs constant guidance and motivation to learn. I help with self-care activities such as feeding and hygiene of the pupil. If the teacher needs to prepare material for teaching or anything I am on hand. After school, there is after school care for the primary school where we have pupils from both classes. There is not a controlled activity like in the classroom where we have to follow strict rules, but we spend time with the pupils in a meaningful way in different activities that they choose independently according to their interests and preferences. Almost all pupils are non-independent, and by virtue of some disability need 100% attention. Also, I am a college student in my spare time, so these two activities take up most of my time. As for my hobbies and interests I like creating, painting, reading and self-education, human psychology and most of all sleep. 

2) As far as I know, you became an international volunteer supervisor for the first time this year. There is probably a long list of responsibilities that go with this role, how would you describe your role in a nutshell? How did you identify with your new role and what motivates you to do this work?

To be honest, when I found out I was going to be a supervisor, I was very happy. I have experienced what it is like to be a volunteer in a foreign country and I know the role from the volunteer side, however my experience was bad and I ended my time abroad early myself. The organisation was not delivering what it should have.

I didn't want any volunteer to ever experience this, so I was glad when Thea was put in my hands. Of course, it's a certain set of responsibilities, and in truth it's sometimes challenging to juggle that with the time and the responsibilities that come with my position It's a rewarding process though, and I'm always finding things to improve. I take the role of supervisor very much in quotes. I don't want any "hierarchy" to play a role between Thea and myself. I accept that we are friends first and foremost, with the added responsibility that I am responsible for certain things.  I want her to feel natural enough not to be afraid to come to me at any time with any problem. While I am responsible for a lot of things - from housing, health issues or Thea's workplace tasks, the fact that Thea is independent in quite a few ways helps a lot. I'm so grateful for her.

3) Volunteers at the beginning of the year don't speak Czech yet, how do you manage to communicate and overcome the language barrier? If appropriate, do the other staff members? 

Well, it's funny sometimes. Thea and I speak English together, and if it happens that we don't understand each other, the translator helps us. The downside is that most of the workers don't speak English, which is more difficult, but these colleagues try to use some German or English words they know, or I translate it myself for Thea if it's something more complicated. It varies from pupil to pupil, we also have pupils who have a great level of English, or some of them communicate in shifts, so there is not much of a problem there. One pupil really loves Thea and he only communicates with shifts and a few syllables. He always asks for Thea when she is missing and sometimes even cries that he misses her, so I feel that not knowing the language does not excuse one not to at least try to communicate. Thea has been trying to use Czech from the very beginning, which I really appreciated.

4) Hosting an international volunteer is certainly a challenge for the Centre, but at the same time a great enrichment. Can you take a moment to look back at your journey with Thea? What are you happy about? What have you achieved together at your school? What did you manage together?

I'm very happy for Thea. September was such an adjustment month for Thea and I. She's been through a lot of changes herself, and I didn't want to load her up with some immediate flurry of work. She had a lot of changes to get used to new people, a new country, a new language, ... practically everything new. So during September she was able to see how things worked and helped with feeding and self-care of the pupils. Even though it may not seem like it, I know she found it challenging at work. You have to get used to the constant noise, for example, so I know she often left with something like "buzzing in her head". Or she often told me that she came home exhausted and had to take a nap. I am very proud of how she has adapted and I am grateful that she lives in an apartment with other volunteers because I can see how much of an impact it has had on the adaptation itself.

Since October we have slowly started to do smaller activities, which has been ongoing until now. Thea has already done art work with two classes and also had a project day with another volunteer - German Day. They prepared a whole morning for the pupils! Good food to taste, flag colouring and activities for the pupils, such as dancing and a game, which is typical for Germany. Thea helped us prepare a slideshow of photos of our workplace. She is creative and very artistically skilled, so we want to continue with both art projects and as a workplace we would like to help with digital work - presentations, leaflets etc. Of course, she has been helping us with the pupils all along the way and I have to say that I can see her becoming more empowered in that as well, she has gained more confidence in her work and knows more about what to do and how to do it. In addition to all this, we have different events as a school. We try to make Thea's volunteering experience as varied and as complex as possible.

5) How did the students actually react to the arrival of Thea in their classroom? How do the children perceive the presence of an international volunteer in the school?

The reactions are different, as we talked before, of course there is a language barrier, so there are pupils who are "limited" in forming some kind of friendship. We are not forcing anyone into it, I personally believe that some will find their way to Thea later on, but it takes time. For our students, sometimes the changes are a little more challenging. For example, I have noticed recently with one shy pupil that he is starting to seek her out more and even that shy barrier has dropped more. Others are thrilled to be able to speak English . We encourage them to speak Czech during lessons, but when it comes to break time, some will go and talk to her and if the English isn't quite right, they at least try with some words they know. 

6) Volunteering is a learning journey for the volunteer but also for the supervisor. How has this experience enriched you so far, what have you learned during it?

Whether it seems like it or not, I am more of an introvert, I just learned some skills to be able to communicate and even perform in front of people. And to be honest, sometimes communication itself is a challenge for me. At the same time I have to learn time-management at work, which is also a challenge for me. But what made me happy recently was when I learned how to make presentations in Canva thanks to Thea, because I didn't know it at all, but by the way we created a presentation of workplace photos together, she showed me beautifully how easy it is to create a beautiful presentation. 

The whole process for me is about a certain empathy, help and understanding. If I, as a supervisor, can put myself in the volunteer's shoes a little bit, I can help them, and if the volunteer can also put themselves in my shoes, they can better identify their needs. Personally, I often ask Thea at work about all the possible areas I can influence and map out if she has a need that I can help her with.  So far, we have been able to improve various areas and resolve any issues. I believe that we will continue to work this way and give feedback to each other. I am very grateful for this opportunity and I am very happy about it. I was worried at the beginning. Fortunately, I can also turn to the coordinators if I need to, and that is important to me. I am glad that even though I am now learning what it is like to be a supervisor, I know that I am not alone. And for that, thank you all so much.

Marcela Kremlová (Thea's supervisor)