Welcome day in Ostrava

On Friday, November 8th, a one-day Welcome day took place in a café in Ostrava - a kind of shortened version of the arrival seminar for two our volunteers who arrived later this year. 

At the beginning of the day, activities for deeper familiarisation and creating a group atmosphere - such as guessing what is and what is not true about a given person, or taking a photo together with the supervisor on the polaroid.   This was followed by planning for the future, what supervisors and volunteers would like to learn from each other, and what they would like to gain over the period - apart from the necessary learning of Czech, it was also to help others and feel needed, or for supervisors to have more time for volunteer and improve their English. 

Overall, the cooperation between the two volunteers and the supervisors is going very well and they are a good support for each other - they understand each other very well despite the language barriers at times.  The afternoon session was more focused on the volunteers' own reflection on their specific goals, what they want to achieve at the end of their service - like learning to ride a bike or going to mountains. There was also an opportunity to discuss the learning process as well as the overall system and rules of volunteering of the service. We ended the program informally with a walk to the observation tower of the New Town Hall in Ostrava, where we had a beautiful, if foggy, view of the whole city.

Meet the two volunteers Lama and Husam!