EVS Fika: Culture and idea exchange!
Yesterday it was our last EVS fika with the lovely volunteers, Debby, Maria and Daniel, who are going to leave us and start a new journey next week. Other EVS volunteers who have worked in Kronoberg, supervisors and mentors for the volunteers also joined us for the fika.
Multicultural Game
Maria, Debby and Daniel prepared delicious fika from their countries. Our intern Sara organized a game for us to play and learn about each other’s culture. In this game, we each wrote down a statement about a country or a culture the participants came from. We were from Sweden, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, France, Poland, Portugal Turkey and Taiwan. The statement does not need to be about your own culture or country. When the host read out the statement, we got to guess what the culture or country the statement described.
’It is not okay to blow your nose in public in this country, but it is totally fine to yawn without covering your wide, open mouth and spit on the street.’ (Turkey)
Understanding and Expectations
After the game it was another game (obviously). Sara had us into three different groups: volunteers, mentors and supervisors. Then she gave us some questions to answer in the group:
- What does it mean to be an EVS volunteer?
- What are the challenges for a volunteer?
- What are the challenges for a mentor?
- What are the the challenges for a supervisor?
- What is the most important task for a supervisor?
We talked in groups, from different perspectives and exchanged our views and ideas among the groups. It was a great opportunity for volunteers to reflect on their EVS year in Sweden; for supervisors and mentors to think about how to make EVS better and meaningful for the new-coming volunteers, the organizations and the supervisors and mentors themselves.
The evening ended with a group hug around our lovely Debby, Maria and Daniel.
Vi ses!
