My Türkiye ESC Adventure

Volunteering in Pi Youth Association – Triin Tallo – 12 months long-term volunteering in Türkiye

Name of the project: Volunteering in Pi Youth Association

Date: 02.09.2023 – 29.06.2024

City/Country: Izmir, Türkiye

Hosting organization: Pi Youth Association

My name is Triin, I am 31 years old and I will tell you about my little journey in Türkiye, Izmir. Let’s start from the beginning. I quit my job in January 2023 and decided to take some time off. I knew for sure that I wanna go to abroad but I had no idea where precisely. After couple of months I was referred to take a look of this project. I had been before in Türkiye and I knew that I really liked there. So, we made an interview… and in September I found myself in Izmir.

First of all – I felt so right. Although the culture, religion, language and everything was so different, I really enjoyed it. I think first thing I started to miss was something familiar, such as food. I shared a really nice apartment with 2 Polish, 1 German and 1 French girl. Living with them was so easy, despite the fact they were much younger. We found a common topics to talk about and time to time we spent time together. My volunteering started right away – basically on the second day in Türkiye 😀 There was one big festival that we had to attend and so we needed to talk about our impression of Türkiye and what we are going to do there.

I was assisting project coordinator in office. So you are wondering what did I do?:D I prepared documents for volunteers who left earlier (short-terms), made schedule for local and ESC volunteers (Since people hardly speak in English, we had to provide someone who could speak English and Turkish). I wrote monthly reports of ESC volunteers and made some workshops also. During my volunteering we had only 1 youth exchange that I helped to organize and I was one of the facilitators.

Sometimes we had seminars around the city or out of the city where we went in order to talk about ESC and Erasmus + projects. Lots of time I had tasks that came unexpectedly ;D Most of the time I worked in laptop but my favorite part of the working in office: I helped to make interviews and I built trustworthy relations with volunteers and in office. I really enjoyed it because sometimes people came to talk to me about personal problems, worries and I could help them. It felt amazing when later they came to me and said thank you for this or that.

As it was in contract I had to work from Monday to Friday from 10 to 17 and I tried to stick with that. Sometimes I was too motivated and worked longer 😀 Be aware of that! 😀 I had really nice people in office and with some of them we became close friends. I got to know them pretty well and we built trustworthy relations. But volunteering is not only about working and being with the closest people. It is perfect opportunity to travel around. Thanks for the project I got to visit many places around Türkiye. Also, they do have long holidays that gave me extra free days. During one of the holiday I went to visit Bulgaria which was long time in my pocket list.

As I mentioned before people in Türkiye don’t speak much English and organisation has more than 100 local volunteers. Among them are mentors who help to adapt into community and shows around. I had a really lovely mentor with whom we could talk almost about anything. Also, organisation organised some events in order to become closer with local volunteers and ESC volunteers.

It doesn’t matter how old you are – there is always an opportunity to learn and experience something new. I could say I started my new life in my 30s and I am more than grateful that I took this opportunity. Don’t think, just go! If it doesn’t feel wrong then it’s right. The project helped me many ways, but most importantly I got confirmation in which area I am good at and what I wanna do in the future. Now I know even better what are my strengths and where I could improve myself. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to write to me 😀