Hi, I am Jade, the French volunteer in Fundació Catalunya Voluntaria. During 10 months I supported the FCV promoting the international mobility for young Catalan people, by creating digital contains, promo materials and organizing workshops. Today is my last day in FCV’s office.

The first reason I wanted to make an EVS was to leave abroad experiencing another country. As well as to prove to myself that I was brave and strong enough leaving my comfort zone.

I have been in Barcelona since 291 days. 291 days are nothing in a human life. But for me they have a strong meaning: emotions, meetings, adventures and challenges. My tasks taught me a lot about NGO, European projects, youth mobility and developed my professional and languages skills. Yet my EVS, above all, opened my mind.

I realized that Europe is not only France, Germany and England. It’s much more than this. I met so many interesting and funny people during my on-arrival and mid-term trainings, from countries I was not interested before. Now, I have friends scattered everywhere and I am really excited to visit them discovering their home and culture.

I learnt also about myself. I am capable to do things when I really want to and I am more skilful then I thought. For instance I have been able to propose useful ideas to the team, realized and achieved them by my own.

I didn´t only spend a lot of good time in Barcelona. Indeed, I also felt very depressed, home sick or anxious for many reasons. I never gave up though. Now I know that asking for help doesn’t mean I am week, it helps me to get better though. I learnt also about my limits, especially about my anxiety and, by the way, I feel stronger.

There are many reasons why I enjoyed my EVS and why I think it’s a beautiful opportunity which every young people should benefit from. Finally, if you want to know more about it, my better advice would be: go and see by yourself 😉

Thank you FCV! <3

Jade