EVS in Santiago de Compostela

Five of us volunteers are living in street named Rua de San Pedro. We are lucky because place where 3 of us are working is only two minutes far away from our apartment and when it is raining (what is not so unusual in Santiago) we don’t need to walk so far away and only our foot are wet J But even better thing about our street is that twice a year there are celebrations – One is in May and another not much later, at the end of June. Last week we had an opportunity to enjoy one of them. 3th of May it was Spring Fair, in Spanish called Feria de Primavera. For a long time our street was full of workers who were making reconstructions of street and that day it was so strange not to be awakened by the sound of machines, but by the voices of many people and children who were from the early morning at the street.  Through the open window were coming inside the smell of barbecue and sound of typical Galician music. It was the sign that it is time to go out and check what all offers Spr...

Those days we organized the “mañás de semana santa” with the monitors  (Lara, Crisitna, María, Tamara, Suso, Angelillo, Toni, Alberto and me). We prepared a lot of activities for the children in order to play and learn. We had sportive activities, animation games (palmada, los ángeles, el pañuelito,…), songs (baby shark, cuando un pirata baila, …) and handcrafts too. We did these handcrafts in order to prepare the LIP DUB: make posters, cut confetis, find costumes… Besides, we also realized a stop motion with plasticine with the older group of children. A Lip Dub is a video promoting a center or a company by presenting it in a fun way. Usually people are dancing and wearing costumes during the presentation. A stop motion is an animation technique where you shoot a lot of photos in a row to give the sensation of movement. Involve children in this type of project is really a pleasure for them. In this activity we developed the responsibility aspect and they learned to be patient i...

After a tired travel by train until Mollina, a village in the middle of Andalucía near from Antequera, we were 8 volunteers from Santiago more Victor our tutor. This formation was in 3 days, short but intense with lots of contents. There were more than 150 volunteers in this formation from all the European countries. It was an opportunity to talk and give his opinion with others volunteers about what we like in Spain, of what we do in our project, … .We had works groups of 20 persons in order to be easier and with those groups we presented our projects. We had the opportunity to take stock of what we did, what we do, what we’ll do. This period was useful in order to have ideas and to write our Youthpass. We could think about the competences and the experiences who we lived across activities and questionnaires. Finally the formation was interesting, it was a way to evaluate our process in the EVS, it was a moment to discover people from lots of countries. Also some volunteers...

Thursday, march 13th we received a Polish delegation thanks to the exchange project “via regia” which makes easier the cooperation between trainers from different countries, in this case Sapnish and Polish. “Through culture to the common future” is the slogan of the European union to promote this kind of action. To receive Polishes the toy library prepared a tipical dance from Poland, a Spanish rap with Javi and a great painting from Toni representing the union between Santiago de Compostela and Będzin (the polish city). Through this day Polishes could see the Don Bosco center, the environment, the children, the trainers and everyone enjoy the Galician sun ! Nico

The 4th March it was Santiago’s carnival, we were inside the parade dressed like the people in the movie Charlie and the chocolate factory. We had children from the sport team, the toy library and the scouts, we were together to celebrate this moment and represent the Don Bosco’s center. We had lots of different character from the movie: Charlie and his father, Willy Wonka, lumpa lumpa, the child who eats chocolate and his mother, the girl with the chewing gum and her mother, … . To represent the chocolate factory we had a float made by Tony and helped by the children from the toy library. Also to animate the parade we had different dance and songs with the lumpas lumpasand we throw out sweets for the spectators. The parade began in the train station finishing in Alameda’s park. We have seen lots of people along the parade whereas it was raining y it was cold. People liked the costumes, they were enjoyed and some people were well costumed, for example, policeman super heroe or vampi...

From 3rd to 5th march we prepared some days for the carnival camp. The activities were scheduled by our regular monitors from the toy library. We had scheduled different types of games, crafts, songs and tales. To be more efficient we divided the children in 2 groups : the little kids (from 4 to 8 years old) and the bigger (from 8 to 12 years old). At first we began with traditional presentations games like Cestas de frutas, te gustan tus vecinos, tu color preferido , … .  After to encourage the children we had songs to start up and tales like for example: los coches que se chocan, voy en busca de un León, hola me llamo Curro o la Sandía, … . Then with the crafts we built carton planes, joke glasses, plaster masks, balloons decorated. At the end, the children were glad to take it and play with their own creations. Also we took advantage of the good weather to do activities out like sportive or other kind of activity like escondite or el brile. At the end of the ca...

To celebrate Don Bosco’s day, the center organized a party on Saturday,February 1 st . There were different activities planned for the children and the adults. We began with a short movie about Don Bosco’s story and his interest in helping the people. After the scouts showed a dance they had prepared in order to thank Don Bosco’s actions with an original choreography. We continued with a snack with chocolate and cakes. And in the same time, we inaugurated the foam machine, on the playground where the children could enjoy it. Moreover there was a circus demonstration thanks to Raquel, acrobatics with silks. Finally children were satisfied by this kind of activities which develop the flexibility and allow them to test their own limits.   Nicolas