Youthpass competences in Arts Lab 3.0 - Leire Saenz Quevedo

Sometimes the final evaluation reports don't show us very clear what our volunteers learned during their volunteering experience in our organisation, this is the reason we go to check the extended Youthpass certificates.  Here is the learning journey in Arts Lab 3.0 of Leire. 

KEY COMPETENCES

Based on the EU framework for Key Competences for lifelong learning (2018).

MULTILINGUAL COMPETENCE

During my ESC project, the language I used the most was English. Even though I considered myself quite fluent before starting this experience, using it for nine months made me improve my English. I especially improved my spoken English.

Throughout the months I spent in Romania, I learned Romanian from scratch, which was really important for me, since I saw it as a way of better understanding the place and the people I was surrounded by, who had welcomed me with open arms from the very beginning. We had Romanian lessons almost every week, but there was a lot of learning that came from interacting with the local volunteers, listening to local craftspeople that only speak and understand Romanian, and kids who attended our workshops.

It is sometimes hard not to feel homesick during an experience like this, this is why sharing the Basque language with people from the community was a really important (and interesting) part of the process for me. I facilitated some Basque lessons at the youth centre, which helped me understand the way my language worked better, in order to make it understandable for others.

I also had the amazing opportunity to share my workplace and living place with two Turkish girls and one Latvian girl. Although I did not have a lot of time to properly learn their languages, it was amazing to get to know some basic words in these languages that I knew nothing about before I met them.

Probably one of the most important aspects to mention is how I improved my ability to read the room. To understand the needs of the people, their difficulties, struggles, and limitations. How can I make myself understandable and how to adapt my speech depending on the individual or group of people I am communicating with or the situation.

PERSONAL, SOCIAL AND LEARNING TO LEARN COMPETENCE

Being far away from home and loved ones, made me become more autonomous and independent. Distancing myself from the known and familiar gave me the opportunity to reflect and get to know myself better. I think this adventure was a journey in which I discovered many things about myself: what I am good at, which are my needs and my limitations, and what I want to do with my life...
During my volunteering project, I also learned how to better appreciate and take care of relationships, both the ones that were built during those nine months and the ones that I had before.

The project was a really enriching experience for me in many aspects. One of the fields in which I improved my skills during my volunteering project, is the artistic one. Having a new place to explore gave me the opportunity to discover new ways of experiencing it, as well as giving me the chance to go on the streets losing the fear of holding a camera in my hands. I learned I could do so many things by doing them.

Being a workshop facilitator and sharing with other people about things that you know does not only benefit the recipients, but also the facilitator itself. I learned so many things during the process of facilitating events and workshops, for example: how to make the information accessible, how to make connections and make sure everyone feels as comfortable as possible, time managing... 

CITIZENSHIP COMPETENCE

Feeling part of the community was one of the main concerns I had before the beginning of the project. Building a strong relationship with local volunteers and people who had a key role on the community was really important for me since the start. It made me get to know Romania, Romanians and their culture in a deeper way.

I consider that volunteering itself is a way to contribute to the society and the community. More so, if the volunteering happens in a small place, like it is Târgu Frumos.

During the Arts Lab 3.0 project, we were part of two exhibitions that were interactive with the community. We first organized and produced art pieces for an exhibition called “Beautiful Fair Town”. The girls and I tried to make an artistic approach to the town: what we found interesting, beautiful, different. The exhibition was open for everyone and it was really interesting to see the outside look and the inside look of the town collide. We also developed an experimental museum, based on Cucuteni culture. For that, we worked with local volunteers and invited people from different backgrounds, ages, interests and studies. We developed workshops directly linked to our approach to the culture and created some art pieces.

ENTREPRENEURSHIP COMPETENCE

I feel like I have always been a really creative person, with a lot of ideas in my head. Regardless, it was difficult for me to do things in the past, maybe afraid of what others would say. During this experience I learned how to turn ideas into actions, and not only that, I also learned how to encourage others to do the same, to believe in their idea and bring it to life.

I saw this very clearly in two scopes. On the one hand, I turned all my workshop ideas into reality thanks to this project. I designed and shaped the workshop content I wanted to share with kids and youngsters and made it real by facilitating those workshops. On the other hand, I stuck to all the artistic projects I had in mind from before arriving in Romania and developed them trough the months.

As I have mentioned in other competences, I believe that building strong relationships is key. For me, understanding the needs of people in different contexts and working on having a good communication was incredibly important to make my volunteering useful and for it to have an impact on the community.

CULTURAL AWARENESS AND EXPRESSION COMPETENCE

Before arriving in Romania, I knew how important it would be for me to learn about the language, culture, folklore and history. Being constantly surrounded by locals helped me a lot to achieve this goal. I was really curious and showed my interest and respect towards Romanian culture, and I always got a really positive response.

Working and living with people from different backgrounds taught me a lot too. I learned to love and respect their languages, habits, foods and believes.

During the time I worked on the association, I also got the chance to be involved in a Erasmus+ project, in which people from many different nationalities took part. This experience was beautiful and I got the chance to get a closer look of these different countries thanks to the intercultural nights we organized. During these nights, the facilitating country would organize a presentation, some snacks and some traditional dances or songs. These nights were a really nice way to interact with people from different cultures and learn about them.

FOLKLORISTICA, the folk festival we organized during August, was one of the most amazing experiences I got to live during my volunteering program. We spent as a team two days surrounded by traditional music, dances and clothing. I got the chance to document and register what happened there during those days. There were craftspeople too, which were using traditional techniques to create amazing art pieces. I also interviewed them and I learned so much from that. The girls and I had the chance to share some little things from our cultures too. Even though we worked really hard during these days, this whole experience was really touching and important for all of us.

I cannot forget to mention how important it was for me to record a documentary on Gheorghe Ciobanu. We, as a team, went to his place for over three months to learn from him how he painted, his technique and his approach on naive painting, but we learned so much more than just that. Recording people while they work gives me the opportunity to get a closer look on their job, to understand what they do and to learn. I found this encounters with him and his family as an inspiration source for all of us, and an exchange point.

DIGITAL COMPETENCE

I think that my digital skills were quite advanced before starting the project since I use technology as a tool to work and study in my everyday life. Anyway, being part of the online on-arrival and mid-term trainings, helped me discover some useful tools that I later used and I am sure will use in the future, like: padlet, jamboard, menti…

I continued working on video and photo editing, so I gained some more experience.

It is important to mention that I improved my digital designing skills after designing catalogues, posters and different logos during the project.

MATHEMATICAL COMPETENCE AND COMPETENCE IN SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING

Using a different currency from the one I was used to before, made me develop this competence. Going to the supermarket, receiving funds, paying for the train… I always needed to calculate how much I was actually spending.

Being away from home, and the funds from the project being the only income resource, controlling the expenses, and planning ahead how much money I had and what I was going to use it for made me more aware of the things I prioritize.

I also learned how to manage my time and be more effective. As a facilitator, I learned to plan activities and set times, as well as adapting them depending on the flow of the event. There was a lot of planning involved prior our events, but it was as important, if not more, the organization that happened during the event itself, making us adapt to every change or inconvenience.

LITERACY COMPETENCE

Writing monthly reports played a major part in this competence. I feel like having to write a report every month helped me understand better what happened, and made me think about ways of sharing my experience in a short, interesting and accessible way for everyone. I believe that a lot of improvement can be seen in my reports, comparing the first ones with the last ones.

Sending text messages to inform people about the activities, or to communicate with the team was also incredibly important. Not only did I learn how to properly redact the messages depending on the receiver and their language level, but also I learned about the importance of giving the right tone in order not to be misunderstood, especially when there was an argument on the team and the only way we could use to communicate in that moment was via text.

I believe that I also gained skills on this competence creating posters for events or writing the information for online posts. When doing so, it is necessary to understand which information is essential, how to synthesis it and keep it clear and accessible.

This is the learning journey of Leire Saenz Quevedo from Basque Country, during Arts Lab 3.0 project, funded by European Union through European Solidarity Corps Programme.