Planet Citizens – Ingrid Veermae – 5 months volunteering in France
Name of the Project: “Planet Citizens”
Dates: 20th September 2021 – 25th February 2022
City/Country: Paris, France
When I first decided to take a gap year after graduating from high school, I knew that I wanted to do something interesting abroad. I started to look for volunteering opportunities in Europe and ended up making an account on the European Solidarity Corps website. Quite soon after that I found a project that I really liked – teaching English via sports in the disadvantaged neighbourhoods in France. So I applied for the project and was very happy to get accepted as an ESC volunteer. An adventure was just around the corner! 🤪
Our daily work took place at different schools and sport clubs where we added English games, exercises and explanations to the coaches` lessons. In addition to doing sports in English with both kids and adults, we were also asked to give some cultural lessons at school and help kids with their English homework. We had a great variety of different activities – for example I had PE lessons, roller skating, skating, tennis, homework support, basketball, badminton and athletics. ⛸️
Furthermore, we participated in different local events such as a world clean-up day and a Laureus, sport for good, event. We were also very lucky to get to see the Olympic Village for Paris 2024 under construction. 💪
As our project was located very close to Paris, we had a lot of time to wander around and discover the city itself! We spent countless hours visiting different museums, parks, streets, stores, bakeries, theatres, cinemas etc. And we even got to see a L’oreal Paris fashion show for free! But of course, it was not just about Paris – we also visited Nimmes and Sommieres for a ESC seminar and some other volunteers in Bordeaux. 🌍
In these five months I learned a lot about myself, different cultures and languages, ways of living and working and so on. And of course – I had a lot of fun, found some really good friends and made great memories! 😎
This Project was financed by European Commission’s European Solidarity Corps Programme
