Nejlas Bericht

My name is Nejla Beganovic and I am a Bechor of Social pedagogy.

I come from Bosnia and Herzegovina. From September 2016, I have pleasure of volunteering at Evangelische Grund Schule, in one small city in Germany, named Halle. First of all, I can say it is life- changing experience.

At the beginning we all have thoughts like "is it worth to go somewhere abroad, somewhere you have never been, or to deal with difficult language barrier, just to volunteer? After few months spent in Germany I can say definitly is worth of it. At the beginning it was really hard, because how much you came prepared you cant even imagine with what kind of things you will deal, or what kind of people you ll find here.

Some of those experiences are good, and some of them not so. But you are learning and in that proccess of learning you discover a new world inside yourself and you deal with new YOU; some way better than before.

Concept of school is devided in two parts: school time where children can learn from teachers, and hort where fun things are happaning. I am in school every day from 9 oclock in the morning till 15: 00. I spend 3 hours helping teacher in class, learning with children German language, math, art and many others interesting subjects. Also children can learn english language, or just having a fun.

Time passes fast, and like volunteer I am trying to figure out how I can the best help the school and children. As at school German language is spoken I had a few difficulties to understand everything what every child have to say. Sometimes we communicate in English because it is a bilingual school, but for the kids bilingual is also something new. I was really pleased with way they accept me like a part of their team. I saw many good ideas, and creative things that can be implemented at schools in Bosnia.

After just few months here in Germany, I started to think differently and I got another picture in my head about education. Why there is a need to have SAME school system now and before 100 years? Why children need to sit calm in their chairs and just listen? WHY NOT TO INTERACT?

There are a lot of things that I have learned here and definitely I will make that happened in Bosnia. Some things are not so good, but we came here to learn, to reasearch and to be bold.
So be bold!