5 minute read
Volunteer out of hardship
My name is Anastasia but you can call me Stacey
by Elena Leiterer
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I met Stacey as one of the volunteers coming to Thessaloniki with a volunteering project, like the rest of us volunteers. She came on the 16th of February this year. She was born in Sumy, a city in the northeast part of Ukraine.
Before she arrived most of us thought: “She was born in Ukraine, that must be tough right now.” Still, we didn’t treat her differently. At least we tried to. We talked a lot since she came here and also about our motives for volunteering.
Usually volunteering is something you do to do something impactful or maybe for self-growth, for a lot of different reasons.
For Stacey, choosing this project in Greece was alongside a pragmatic choice.
Selfie Stacey
© Anastasia Mosalenko
Her story of becoming a volunteer starts as the result of a lot of coincidences and hardship.
Her first experience away was in Germany for an Erasmus exchange program arranged by her university. The exchange started in October 2021 and lasted for five months. It was her first experience abroad and she came with four other students from her university. She was glad to be chosen because she was always curious about different cultures and getting to know new people.
Therefore she enjoyed her time there until, right at the end of her project in February 2022, the war started in Ukraine.
Normally, after the time she spent there, she was supposed to go back to Ukraine. However, the next day the 25th of February she had a Flixbus booked to Poland to visit her mother.
Because of the war she suddenly was stuck in Warschau.
She was confronted with a very uncertain situation and had to learn the peculiarities applying to her case on her own. There were lots of challenges figuring out what she could do next.
She found a way in studying two exchange semesters in a row from March to June that year. She has a positive view of this time. She met a lot of people, did her diploma, and made the best out of her situation. However, after this time, she was facing the same problem again:
The uncertainty in her future follows her since the war started, as she displays. Still, she states:
Stacey in Poland
© Anastasia Mosalenko
That time she got help from her friend, formerly her university professor. This friend knew about her circumstance and suggested she take part in a volunteering project.
The project included teaching students with games and workshops as an informal way of teaching. These students were from a variety of Polish schools and of different ages.
To apply this volunteering was a logical inference because it provided free accommodation, meals, pocket money, and most importantly a chance to stay in Poland.
Project Poland
© Anastasia Mosalenko
Doing this project originated as a way to stay in Poland, but turned out to be an amazing experience for Stacey especially the work with children.
When you get attached to students is the best.
She was impre ssed by the English level of the students and insisted on how they were the biggest motivation for her project. Furthermore, she found herself in a very intercultural environment where volunteers came from Zimbabwe, Indonesia, Mexico, Peru, and more.
In the end, she spent eight months in Poland.
And it inspired her to find other ESC opportunities to leave Poland. She was glad when she discovered a project in Greece that started on the 16th of February this year. This project is called “Sxedia stin poli”, and it includes working with kids, workshops, and social media work.
Greece
© Anastasia Mosalenko
Her main reason for choosing a project in Greece was to get temporary protection and build her future. However, to this day she has had a lot of trouble in Greece finding out how to continue her life.
She has mixed feelings most of the time. On the one hand, she likes her project. She learned to create videos and does content creation. Also, she likes to meet new people here and tries to imply her hobbies like singing, drawing, or playing guitar here too.
On the other hand, she is frustrated. Volunteering is just a part-time solution and her options are limited. Her wish is to find a master’s degree in Spain and study abroad but she doesn’t have that kind of freedom. Her options at the moment are to stay in Greece, go back to Poland or Germany, or go back to Ukraine. She wishes to visit her home city Sumy someday but with the war and the economic state of the country, she can’t imagine her future there.
