EVS in Pomiechówek

Every year Poland celebrates the “Libraries Week,” consisting on different events and activities during the week for everyone. During my stay in the country it happened from the 8th till the 15th of May and, of course, the library in Pomiechówek wouldn’t be less and plenty of workshops and other events were held here. I also decided to do my part and create a new escape room -once again following the idea of the previous volunteer, Angeline. After much discussion, we decided that the story theme would be “Alice in Wonderland,” merging the fairyland kingdom with the writer Lewis Carroll’s room. The final composition turned out pretty cool in my opinion. The pre-game story explained that the Queen of Hearts had stolen some pages of Carroll’s manuscript, so that Wonderland would never be the same and she could take over it. The participants had 40 minutes to find the 10 missing pages in the room and save the Kingdom. First, the children (though not only did we have childr...

The 8th of March is International Women’s Day. Surely, everyone remembers this date, but I discovered this year that each country celebrates it in a different way. In Spain, it is a day for the vindication of women’s rights. There is a female strike and huge demonstrations in the main cities. The number of participants keeps growing every year, reaching 370,000 in Madrid. That is why I was very shocked when, just after arriving to work, two strangers (delegates from the mayor, as I was explained later) came in the library with a bucket of tulips, gave a flower to each of us and three kisses. We also had some sweets from Mrs. Ewa. Apparently this is super common in Poland; every women is congratulated on this day and usually receives some flowers. Marine and I also decided to do our bit to contribute on this day, as part of the activities organized by the Culture Center. We did a presentation -translated by Ania- about Influential European Women, focusing on people or fac...

Not many people is totally aware of how EVS projects work.   As volunteers of the European Solidarity Corps, our main job is at our host organization, which for me is the library in Pomiechówek. However, we are part of a bigger organization that coordinates the individual projects of the volunteers, thus, every once in a while, we have the chance to take part in other events different from our own jobs. This was the case of the weekend of the Polish independence anniversary.   On the 8 th of November our team of volunteers was kindly invited to Serock – a little town close to Pomiechówek– to collaborate in the activities the social center had prepared for its users in commemoration of the 100 years of Polish independence. After a short presentation about the function of the institution and a comforting lunch the activities started. To run the workshops the participants and we were divided into three groups, so that they would have 45 minutes of each activity. Travis, vo...

July 16, 2018 Cześć ! My name is Angeline , I am 21 and I come from France. I started my EVS (aka European Voluntary Service) in the library of Pomiechówek, Poland, in September 2017 and this amazing experience will end in August 2018. 12 months in Poland... 12 months of discoveries, meetings, personal challenges and travels... 12 months with everything to learn, a culture shock and a language barrier to overcome and a new environment to adapt... But also 12 months sharing time with amazingly nice people in a place I will miss as soon as I will leave. 12 months, that's a lot to share with you, dear reader ! Let's go step by step and start with the beginning... After two years of French preparatory class focused on Humanities and a third year at the university to study English Literature and Civilization, I finally got graduated in English in 2017. Then I should have naturally kept on studying to obtain a Master and start my professional life... However, I dreamt ...

From October to December 2017 Cześć ! When you start living abroad, the first main difficulty you have to overcome is the adaptation to a new environment and a new culture. Poland is a part of Europe so the culture shock wasn't that violent contrary to Asian countries for example, but still, you need time to adapt. As a volunteer, my role was not only to discover and understand this foreign culture but also to share my own culture and my experience as a foreign volunteer in Poland with local people. Creating a presentation about my homeland was one of my first tasks at the library. I met many classes of Primary School and Gymnazjum (aka Secondary School) to share pictures and explanations about France. We talked about food (frogs, snails and stinky cheeses... but not only !!), landscapes, houses architecture, famous actors and singers and even famous international events and festivals which usually take place in France. Then I presented the place where I used to live...

October 2017 Cześć !  What do you know about Halloween in your country ? Let me give you some short explanations from my French point of view... Halloween is a celebration that takes place on 31st October - the day before All Saints' Day. In France, it's a day when we can wear ghost, witch, pumpkin or skeleton costumes to ask for sweets in the shops and houses or attend to a party. We can also carve pumpkins to put a candle inside, tell frightening stories, watch horror movies or play divination games... This celebration is more or less popular according to the countries where you live. This year, I wanted to make Polish children discover and enjoy this tradition at the library because this celebration is generally a great source of fun and joy for them and it was really popular in my country when I was younger. However, I forgot that Poland was a very catholic country which meant we encountered some resistance from people because this tradition was seen as disr...