Life starts where your comfort zone ends - a report by Emina
„Life starts where your comfort zone ends“-it is a quote that best describes my voluntary service here in FK Halle, Germany. My name is Emina Džehverović and my comfort zone was my homeland country-Bosnia&Herzegowina, my family and friends. Coming here in Halle, I left everything familiar and I started a new journey called „voluntary service“ that will last for 12 months. My place of assignment (PoA) is evangelical kindergarten „Kita Marktspatzen“ where I work with the youngest group of the children. Even if I was a volunteer in Bosnia for a couple of years, and I worked with different categories of children, I never had a chance to work with such a young group of children. It took some time for the children to get to know me, but now after couple of months they are „arguing“ over me and they are saying „Meine Emina“...
It is hard to describe how this voluntery service affected on me, because of all the things that followed. My motivation for participation in this service was to learn all the things that I will be able to use my whole life. And I'm glad to say that is exactly what I got. How is going to be your voluntery service, depends mostly from the volunteer itself. On the beginning, ofcourse, it wasn't easy. I missed everything, my family, friends, country, but with time you learn how to deal with moments of crisis. Also, the biggest challenge for me was (and kind of, still is) the language barriere. Every volunteer should be aware that almost no one speaks english at PoA, and that you have to be able to speak and understand german language. Not just at your PoA, but in everyday life as well. It was so unusual for me on the beginning, that I wasn't able to express myself, 'cause I didnt speak german very well. But luckily, living in Germany is a great opportunity to learn and to improve your knowledge of german language. Also, I have to mention that this voluntary sevice was very specific and unforgettable because of the COVID-19 situation. It was in general, a huge change for the whole world when the whole story about virus started. That was the hardest part for us volunteers and everyone else, the lockdown, uncertainty of the situation, fear,doubts.... We didn't work for more than a month, but luckily things find they way how to slowly go back to „normal“ and we were able to continue our voluntary service. Actually, we just learn how to live with COVID-19, and how to take care for ourself and the others with all the neccesary measures. Rather than that, this year is a year to remember. This kind of project (living abroad) is a great oportunity for your personal development in every possible way. You learn and you discover so many things about yourself that you didnt know in a first place. Also, through seminars I became more aware about some veeery important topics like: racism, discrimination, colonialism...You become more aware of the importance of this topics and how this topics are part of our everyday life, unfortunately. You also learn about diversity and how sometimes, being who you are (rather is that country that you come from, colour of your skin etc.) can determine your life. You learn how predjuice, stereotypes-that people have, will put you in a certain „category“...
To conclude, I don't regret for applying for this project, because this voluntary year opened my horizons, and the way I see the world and myself as well. So „be the change that you want to see in the world“ and apply for this project.
Kind regards,
Emina