Volunteer Life Story of luck
Life beyond Volunteering by Mario Urminsky
Anna Katnovska came to Greece from Poland as a volunteer
9 years ago. By the time her project ended, she was in love with the country and decided to stay there.
What was your EVS project?
My project was focused on tourism and work-
nized a different workshop for kids, not just about drawing but about creativity in general. During my EVS I met one of the trainers, Elias, who had a lot of ideas for creating one book about chess and the environment, and we started to cooperate.
ing with kids. Everything started in village called Prespa in the northern part of Greece. Kids there don’t have lot of activities, just primary school. We were working in the library and organizing different educational activities for them as well as going to other villages during the week to Can you tell us more about the book work with other children.
Why did you decide to participate in a project in Greece?
In Poland, I studied classical philosophy, Latin, and ancient Greek. I wanted to understand greek culture and art better, so I decided to learn more of the language and see how life is in Greece. What was your next step after EVS?
that you cooperated on?
The idea was to make a short story for kids about playing chess. A story about a panda that recognized that on Earth people don’t care about the environment and the world. She is thinking about what she is supposed to do. So she went to space where there is another panda and they are travelling between the planets to collect the chessboard. Every chess piece has some stories. It encourages kids to learn how to play chess and also to understand and take care of the environment and the things that we have from Earth. From the other end of the book, you can learn how to play chess, with different movements and strategies.
After my EVS I was travelling a lot, and then I decided to participate in other programs. Comenius Assistantship that is now part of the Erasmus Plus program. This program gave me the possibility to come to Thessaloniki and work one year in a primary school as an assistant to the teacher, teaching art and organizing programs and activities for kids. What is your current job? There I started again my adventure with the greek language. I was already speaking at a B1 level, so I My current work is as a Destination Manager, taking care of Polish tourists that are coming was able to communicate with kids. here for vacation on the islands and organizing excursions for them. I have my team (represenWe know that you like drawing and tatives, animators, guides) and I am responsible you use this skill in your life often, for them, and also for the tourists that want to how it started? spend a great vacation here. I didn’t plan to stay Until I remember i was always drawing, es- here, just to learn the language and come back, pecially drawing for kids like cartoons. I orga- but you never know what can happen during life.
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