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A Kosovo girl discovers her “Polish part”

Monday, January 19 2009 By Margot Reis | 21 comments

The European Voluntary Service is a sponsored international volunteering program for young people between 18 and 30.  In 2006, more than 4500 volunteered in NGOs throughout Europe with the so called EVS, including some volunteers in and from the Balkan countries[1].

Albina Syla, 25, an ethnic Albanian girl from Kosovo, volunteered nine month long in Wroclaw, Poland, where she took care of physically and mentally ill people.

Looking back in the past, Albina Syla, 25, has already seen much from the world. The young ethnic Albanian girl from Kosovo studied English at university and has been working in a radio station for five years know. In 2006, she decided to go on a European Voluntary Service in Wroclaw, Poland. Nine month long, Albina took care of physically and mentally disabled people.  After her time abroad, Albina came back to her family and former job as a radio journalist and became also a youth trainer.

Not according to the clichés

With her short blond hair, blue eyes and many piercings, the young woman does not look like the stereotype Western Europeans may have about people coming from Kosovo. Albina’s odyssey to Poland started when she heard of European Voluntary Service at the time she was volunteering at the Youth Center of her city of origin, Gjilan, a small town called Gnjilane in Serbian language, situated in the East of the now independent Republic of Kosovo, near the Macedonian border.

For her friends, Albina’s decision to go abroad was quite curious. “I wanted to discover myself”, says the young woman. Because of the difficulty for people coming from Kosovo to get a visa, Albina decided to travel to Poland rather than to the United Kingdom, where she originally wanted to go. “I was interested in the project in Poland”, she remembers. “I wanted to know if I was able to live without my parents, my brother and my friends”, she says.

“I felt in love with that job”

Nine month long, Albina worked every day from 8 to 15 in a center called Ostoja, where physically and mentally ill adults would get a preparation to be able to take jobs, for example in fast food restaurants. Each day, Albina had to take care of a group of 5 people with diseases like hyperactivity, autism, schizophrenia or epilepsia. “It was really hard in the beginning”, remembers Albina. Now she knows how to deal with this kind of diseases. “I felt in love with that job. I was missing the radio but I was feeling good helping people”, she says.

 In Wroclaw, Albina lived in a big shared house with other volunteers coming from all over Europe. “I was lucky I had a lot of nationalities in the flat so I learned a lot of things”, she says happily. That’s how Albina got to know not only Polish culture, but also culture from Spain, Germany, Macedonia, Bosnia and Ukraine. She still has contacts with the friends she made during her time in Poland as well as with the families of the patients.

Learning in tandem

When Albina first arrived in Poland, she started to speak English and Serbian with the people. As a Slavic language, Serbian is close to Polish, so it was easier for her to communicate. Then she found a tandem partner to learn Polish properly. Albina and her tandem partner will speak only Polish for a while, and then switch the language, so that both of them were obliged to learn and to progress quickly.  “After one month, I was OK with communication. I could understand even if I could not respond”, she remembers. With this technique, Albina was able to overcome the little misunderstandings of the beginning and speaks now not only good Polish but also better Serbian and better English.

“EVS gave me a lot of things, things that made me braver”, she sums up, two years after she came back. She even thinks about volunteering in a centre for mentally ill people in Kosovo to use her specific knowledge from Poland. Although Albina is happy with her job at the radio station, the young woman misses Poland and Polish culture and language a lot. “I still think I am going to come back. I think I am born for Poland!”, she says.  

Margot Reis for LDA Kosovo

 

[1]  Estimate 2006, Source : Injep, French National EVS Agency http://www.injep.fr/IMG/pdf/8psvefr_output.pdf

Yann, EVS Volunteer at the Local Democracy Agency in Gjilan/Gnjilane, Kosovo

Tuesday, January 13 2009 By Margot Reis | 11 comments

This post is also available in: German French

The European Voluntary Service is a sponsored international volunteering program for young people between 18 and 30. In 2006, more than 4500 volunteered in NGOs throughout Europe with the so called EVS, including some volunteers in Balkan countries (1).

Yann Cassaro, 29, is an EVS volunteer in Gjilan/Gnjilane, a small town in Kosovo near the Serbian and the Macedonian border.

Every morning, the day of Yann, 29, French volunteer in Kosovo, starts with a cup of hot Turkish coffee. Then he goes to work and stops for some drinking yoghurt and burek on the way. Yann got quickly used to this Balkan speciality, a fried pastry roll filled with cheese, spinach or meat, which people enjoy at any time of the day, just like Yann does now after nearly a year in Kosovo.

At any time of the day, Yann meets a lot of acquaintances on his way to work. They greet each other with a warm “A je lodhem?” “Are you tired?”. The French volunteer answers he’s fine, exchanges a few words with the friend he just met and makes his way ahead to a small office situated in the city centre, the Local Democracy Agency of Kosovo. Over the months, the inhabitants of Gjilan, called Gnjilane in Serbian language, get used to the tall silhouette of Yann passing by through the streets. The small town with a strong majority of ethnic Albanians is about three quarters of an hour with the bus from the capital Prishtina or Pristina.

Yann works at the Local Democracy Agency of Kosovo, an NGO fostering civil society building and supporting local projects in the region. His main task as an EVS volunteer was to run and develop an information point in the centre. He also took part in various initiatives, like organizing conferences, reprogramming the Agency’s website or putting a group of pathfinders in contact with Roma kids and launching a summer project with them.

Key moments and lots of coffee

In a few weeks, Yann’s time in Kosovo will be over. He experienced many historic moments during his stay, like the declaration of independence of the country last February. But working in an apolitical NGO, Yann considers it is not his job to tell what he thinks about this kind of issues. “I would not allow myself to have any opinion about this”, explains Yann.

More than politics, it’s the “unformal side of life” and the casual way you can get in touch with people that really impressed Yann about living in Kosovo. “When you meet somebody, he immediately wants to take you out for a coffee and have a chat with you, even if you may only talk about commonplaces”, says Yann.

The young man learnt the basics of the Albanian language on his arrival. When it’s not enough to communicate, Yann uses English, French or improvises nonverbally.

An “experience of exchanging and getting together”

“I had never been abroad during my studies. European Voluntary Service was the easiest solution for me to go”, remembers Yann, who studied political science and communication in France and finished university a few months before leaving for Kosovo. Yann’s decision to go there was mostly a coincidence, but now he says he’s happy about his EVS, an “experience of exchanging and getting together”, as he puts it.

From Yann’s point of view, the small city of Gjilan was a good choice to get integrated in the daily life of the population of the country. He thinks it would have been much more difficult to get so much involved with people from the place in a capital city like Prishtina, which is full of strangers working for international organisations.

After a year as a volunteer, Yann is now looking for a job. If possible, he would like to stay in this part of the world. “After the year I spent in Kosovo, I know a little bit better what I would like to do for a living”, Yann says. His new competences as a former volunteer may also help him to find a new position. “As an EVS volunteer, you learn how to manage things on your own, you learn to go beyond the stereotypes you have”, explains Yann. “And you learn a lot about yourself!”, he adds as a conclusion.

Margot Reis for LDA

(1) Estimate 2006, Source : Injep, http://www.injep.fr/IMG/pdf/8psvefr_output.pdf