Hi, I'm Yeray Halifi and I did a European volunteer placement in Greece this summer, from July to August. I applied for this project because I had always wanted to live in Greece and it was a great opportunity to spend the summer visiting new places and meeting new people.At first I was hesitant because I had already planned to do a university Erasmus in Lithuania from September 2021 to June 2022, so I didn't know if it was too risky, spending a whole year and all that implies, both financially and psychologically. In the end I agreed to give it a try, because that's how you really learn and it couldn't have been better.
I went to Greece with my friend Maria, so I was sure that I had an important emotional support if something strange happened, but what I didn't plan was that the other 6 volunteers would become my family, a family that you can understand everything at a glance, the kind of families that are unbreakable and that mix all personalities in such a space that it seems impossible that they will all fit together and work together, but that's how it was.
I can say without any doubt that I have had the best summer of my life in Greece, Serres has become what you call home, I never expected it to be so intense but it was. In volunteering I have learned so many things that it is difficult for me to describe them, collaborating with groups in social exclusion has always been my goal, I study Social Work and I am interested in contact with the community to be able to continue training and learning from it and so it was, meeting the local community in such a direct way was a gift, thanks to that I have understood and I have entered in just two months in the Greek culture, its gastronomy and its customs. Knowing the story of refugees who, due to their socio-cultural context, have had to emigrate to a social reality that is totally different from their own is impressive and makes you reflect on what kind of world we live in and what we can do as people in the face of this.
As I say, this volunteering has had it all, I have met incredible people that I will always take with me (right now I am on a flight to Italy to see some of them), I have travelled to places I had always wanted to visit such as Greece itself, Bulgaria and Cyprus, I have learned a lot from my volunteer activity, it has developed me both personally and professionally and has helped me to even know myself better, I could not have asked for more, I encourage you all to take every opportunity you are given to do projects like this because they change your life.
YERAY HALIFI MORALES
Yeray is a Spanish volunteer in Praxis organization, writing his own experience about the project.