In 1st April 2017, I started to do my EVS project in Spain/Barcelona with Fundació Catalunya Voluntària. The project that I would take part was called as “Volunteering for Peace” on topics such as peace education, peace building and conflict transformation. My main task was to contribute with my interests, experience and educational background in supporting the international networking and communication strategies of the Peace Bag for EuroMed youth international secretariat and meanwhile supporting organizational activities in local level and facilitating workshops to interact with locals.
It was long time that I was improving myself on the topic of Inner Peace, Yoga, Meditation and Mindfulness but my EVS project gave me opportunity to consolidate my interests of inner peace with peace work in the outer and social level.
From 16 to 20 October, I joined the midterm evaluation training in Mollina, Malaga which is quite isolated place as a good opportunity to discover the power of the silence on the learning process. It was aimed to give time the volunteers to evaluate the projects so far. I was reflecting on my experiences and what I have been doing all this time and I realized the workshops that I was facilitating last month were one of the best experiences to remember. The topic was Mindfulness; by using Yoga and different meditation techniques as tools to reach the state of mind to keep people living in the present. I believe all the change start within us and spread from us to one by one to society.
During these 4 workshops I have had chance to interact with 13 people in total. They were all satisfied from the result and considered to imply the learnings on their daily life. The feedback I have received from them was enough to pose the motivation to keep working on these workshops and reach more people.
And it happened too. Later I had invited to a school in Badalona, a small town close to Barcelona, to do these workshops with 25 teachers who are between 25 to 60 years old. I believe it will create such a big impact and will lead a good cooperation between my organization and this or even more schools to work together.
When I look back, I see many more things to talk about. But all in one, I have seen the importance of working together and thinking big. I have full of motivation and hopeful ideas for the rest of my project. I am glad that thanks to my EVS project; I have realized my potential to be the part of the change that I want to see in the world.
Asmin