#evsboras

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Another day, another volunteer! Here is the introduction video of Amine. He comes from Belgium and just loves music (and drawing as you can see) :D Looking forward to meeting you tomorrow, Amine!

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Last but not least is Nacho! :) He comes from a town near Santiago de Compostela, Spain, is passionate about sports and is not afraid of stepping out his comfort zone. Tomorrow a camino de Santiago (in the opposite direction) awaits him! :D

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Happy Monday EVS world! On 1st of September we will welcome 4 new fellow volunteers! Sounds exciting, eller? :D Today we will introduce you to Anna. She comes from Austria (even though she subtly wants us to believe that she's from somewhere else), she is a music lover and firmly believes that unicorns are real. Looking forward to meeting you, Anna! :) Enjoy the video :)

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Chiara, färdiga, kör!

Tjena, Chiara speaking here, the EVS veteran currently obsessed with crochet (and failing miserably at it).

Since my project is focused on youth work, my main task is planning activities with and for young people but, first of all, playing with them! So here is a list of most of the things I have been doing during my working hours:

Board games: chess, Kalaha, Fyra i rad, Fia med knuff, A ticket to ride, Colorio, Med andra ord, Scrabble...

Card games: UNO, Chicago, Finns i sjön, sjuan, poker, skitgubbe, plump, dam, bluff��

Sports: brännboll, basket, football, volleyball, badminton, table tennis, boules… 

Arts and crafts: painting, drawing, creating patterns with Perler, origami, quilling, flip books, crochet, making bracelets with loom bands…

Other activities: playing pool and kubb, planning treasure hunts with the children, playing the drums, canoeing, playing bingo, organising a ghost walk in the woods and team building activities at summer camps…

You might think: ‘Big deal, you have been playing games for ten months’, but playing has actually helped me bond with the young visitors I work with and, above all, improve my Swedish. It is not a coincidence that the first things I leant were ‘kör!’ (= ‘play!/come on!’), ‘det är din tur’ (= ‘it’s your turn’) and ‘fuskar du?’ (= ‘are you cheating?’). Playing has also given me the opportunity to talk with the children about topics such as fair play, respect for the opponent, team play and that ‘we don’t play to win, but to have fun!’ (I’m still working on that, though).

                    That’s me losing at chess against a 10 year-old.

The beauty of EVS is that volunteers can boost their skills in many informal ways and that they do not need to read a manual or join a course to do that. In my case, I have improved the most by engaging with young people and doing things myself, by recognising my mistakes and learning from them. So it is totally up to you to choose the way you learn the most!

Now I have to go, I have to watch a video about how to crochet a scarf.

Puss och kram,

Chiara

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Välkommen till Sverige!

Hallo everyone and welcome to my first blog post!

My name is Charlotte (or Lotta), I’m almost 25 years old and just graduated from university. So I decided I will do an EVS project rather than starting my master degree in Intercultural Communication right away. And in September I finally arrived in a wondrous town called Borås! For the next 12 months I will be working at Brygghuset, a “D.I.Y. arena” for young adults. 

During that time I would like to share my experiences with you to give you an impression of what it’s like to be a volunteer and how it feels to live in Sweden! If you have any questions feel free to comment, send me an email or follow our EVS Instagram account as well as my own. :)

Equipped with a huge backpack and a small suitcase I went on a scenic 12-hour train ride from Germany via Denmark to Sweden. I know it sounds long and annoying but it was actually pretty amazing! I got to go on a fairy with(!) the ICE and enjoy the beautiful Nordic landscape during the ride plus it’s eco-friendly and cheap! When I finally arrived at Gothenburg main station my two wonderful coordinators welcomed me with a super cute sign with my name on it like in the movies. In Borås the other EVS volunteers who already started their EVS project a couple of months ago awaited us with a super delicious vegan taco dinner. Because apparently that’s a thing here: Taco Fridays!

As you can already tell from this tumblr there are 7 more wonderful volunteers in Borås currently. I know I have 11.5 months ahead of me but the first weeks already went by so fast with welcome parties, goodbye parties, birthday parties, city tours, pub quizzes etc. that I’m sure it’ll be over faster than I can say “Knut satt vid en knut och knöt en knut. När Knut knutit knuten var knuten knuten”. 

Oh, and how could I forget about the most Swedish daily tradition ever: fika. It’s basically a fancy Swedish term for tea time/coffee break when you get to socialize and enjoy some yummy kanelbullar or other sweet stuff! Some people also believe, fika could bring world peace...

Actually, Borås is not that cold. It’s rainy. That’s probably why they covered the musical “Singing in the Rain”. But the good thing is that doesn’t stop people from starting amazing projects like the No Limit Street Art Festival! During one week artists from all over the world took over the city to create some amazing art work that’s here to stay. Our awesome coordinators also arranged a guided tour in English for us where we learnt more about the artists and could also see them paint and sometimes even talk to them! On top of that they also offered everyone to paint on an Open Wall so we EVS volunteers became very creative to promote our badass program as you can see below. ;)

All in all I had an amazing time the first two weeks especially because everyone made me feel very welcome – the other volunteers, my coordinators, my mentor, and also my new co-workers. So I would already like to thank you so much for all your efforts and for making this such an amazing experience for me! I am very excited for what is yet to come and hopefully whoever is reading this can benefit from it in some way. In my next post I will introduce you to my working place!

Vi hörs!

Charlotte

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-3 days to Charlotte hitting Borås! :D

She comes from Germany, loves sports (NOT!) and has green fingers. If you spot someone cycling along the Öresundsbron with a lot of suitcases this Friday, that will be her. xD

We won’t say too much now – we will let you get to know her from this video! :)

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I think I’m in love..

In Borås we have new masterpieces on some bulidings and I think I’m in love with every single one of them.

Since I’m very interested in art , I’m really happy that Borås has all of these graffiti and paintings , because every time I’m in the city center, I’m walking through an outside gallery and everytime I’m overwhelmed like I see them for the first time.

The artists creat them in less then a week sometimes and that’s even more impressive.You can see how much they love their work and I’m happy that they share it with us.

On friday the volunteers went on the „No Limit Street Art Borås “-tour so that we can actually watch the artists while they create their masterpieces and also hear a little story about it.

Somehow I couldn’t decide if I should take pictures or not , because I was so fascinated and thought „ Omg everyone has to see this live , I can’t show the awesomeness of this in a photo !“but in the end I took some pictures anyway to share it with my friends and family that they see in what a beautiful city Im living in and maybe also to make them a bit jealous :D.

Some of the volunteers could even try to spray graffiti and paint with the artists and I can tell, it’s soo great to be a little part of it. Watching the artists and trying to understand how it’s possible to create this and let people speechless.

So now I really feel like paining ! I will share some pictures with you and like I’ve said you have to see them live, if you get the chance it’s really worth it to take yourself some time to see them.

Celine

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Hemmakväll (literally ‘evening at home’): a shop where you can find everything you need to spend a pleasant evening at home - godis, DVDs, crisps, drinks - but in the end you decide to spend your evening there.

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MidEVSommar

I know it has been exactly 43 days after Midsommar, but I thought it is never too late to share our impressions (and pictures!) about this typical Swedish celebration.

As the name suggests, Midsommar marks the middle of the summer and the Swedes use it as an excuse to eat a lot of food – among which there is the controversial surströmming (funny-smelling fermented herring) – drink alcohol like there’s no tomorrow and make fool of themselves by dancing the Små Grodorna song around a maypole.

We EVS volunteers gave our best in celebrating this festival in the picturesque Ramnaparken, where we had fika with vanilla ice cream and strawberries, wore flowers in our hair and danced around the Midsummer maypole. After a lot of effort and begging I even managed to persuade Lidia to dance with us!

Hope you enjoy the video!

Chiara

x

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Dear people of the world, 

Here you have the best of the best in Europe: Victor’s Video!! I am sorry to say I get confused and don’t know how to call you, Anastasios, Victor...

I had to make the video shorter so it fit, but there is more to come, here we go!

Hope you all enjoy!

Lidia

PS: We had some technical difficulties with the videos but they are fixed now. Enjoy!

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Directly from the source, the volunteers from the arrival training in Stockholm April2016, are in a country concert. Hej då!