Discovering new skills

We started the month of March having to do two weeks of quarantine, because, unfortunately, Gönül was infected with Covid. Althoug, sometimes, not be able to leave the house made me a little sad, but having activities to plan and prepare for made it easier. It was also fun to do the quarantine with friends instead of being with my family.  During the months of March and April, Manon and I carried out the Educational Campaign “Valuing Water”. This campaign has given me the opportunity to learn more about water pollution, to learn how to use different online tools to create videos and make presentations, as well as, it has been a challenge for me to do the different talks in schools. I like to make talks and I feel comfortable doing them in Spanish and Portuguese because they are languages that I control, but to make these talks even if it was not a very complex topic has been a challenge for me because I don’t have a high English level, so it is more difficult for me to express myself and make myself understood properly.

I am grateful to have this opportunity because, thanks to the support of my partner, Manon, and my mentor, Rita, I have felt able to explain myself correctly to children from different schools. I think in another environment, such as a job or university, I would not have been able to give a talk in English.  In addition, as part of the actions dedicated to World Water Day, we cleaned the Firiza Lake, collecting more than 1000 bags of garbage. With this action, we wanted, on one hand, to remove the numerous waste that were in the lake, and on the other hand, to raise awareness about the importance and the need to keep clean the water we have.

I liked being able to participate in this activity both in the process of dissemination of the activity and to collect waste together with volunteers from other associations, and to access the Straiti-Firiza dam whose access is restricted and is only open to outsiders on special occasions. It is an activity that I always wanted to do but never had the opportunity, to be able to do it in such a beautiful environment and in the company of such committed people makes me want to repeat it.

Maria Branco Bartolomeu – volunteer in the project Solidarity for a Better Future (S4BF) funded by European Solidarity Corps