Life is giving us opportunities every day. Sometimes really little things can change our way of thinking. Like Winston Churchill said: “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.” In the past I was focusing more on all difficulties the life was giving to me. Because of that, I was not able to see every day chances.
Volunteering in Fundació Catalunya Voluntària-FCV gave me the opportunity to meet new people. I realized about the cultural differences between our countries. I also struggled to find myself in a new culture and situation.
Recently, I took a part in the video contest Erasmus+ Volunteering Awards. The task of a contest was to create a one-minute video about volunteering experiences. So I prepared the video and the magic happened – I became one of the winners!
As a prize, the 11 winners were invited to the European Youth week in the European Parliament, in Brussels. Besides, all of the winners won a trip of their choice to another European country.
It was the first time I was in Brussels. The city is beautiful, people are friendly and helpful. It’s a multicultural city, and almost all people I’ve met speak English. It was also my first time in the European Parliament. I was so excited! Once there, I prepared my business card and I was ready to start networking.
We have met representatives of the European commission, and we had the opportunity to talk with them about our experiences and projects. I was explaining what FCV is doing and how I became inspired by the project I was able to be involved in. I explained also the idea about connecting volunteers: volzone.eu. Something like this is in Europe’s future plans, so maybe volzone.eu project can be helpful!
During the event I have asked about opportunities for the youth, which you can find out in the following video:
To share the information about opportunities for youth I turned on Community contributions on YouTube. It mean that if you like the video and you want to share it with your friends which can’t speak English jet you can help and create subtitles in your language.
I created a tutorial about how to add subtitles, in case you want to contribute.
Marcin Bury – Current volunteer at the FCV
