I’ve Volunteered in 3 Countries: Kazakhstan, the USA and Hungary
Written by Darina Ilina - To explain how I feel about volunteering in a foreign country, I should start from what it means to me being a foreigner and how volunteering makes me feel. Leaving your home country and moving abroad when you don’t know a soul there can be scary and exciting at the same time. It’s very easy to lose your self-confidence and self-value when your loved ones are not around. This is when volunteering can make your life worthy, when you can feel like a part of the team, gain confidence and have energy and motivation to work more.
I’ve volunteered in 3 countries: Kazakhstan, the USA and Hungary and all those experiences were unique. My exchange year in the USA was crucial for my volunteering path. This is where I’ve learnt how to look for places to volunteer and how I can organize my own events. Going back to Kazakhstan and staying there for a gap year I had a problem explaining why I do community service and what is my profit from it. It was the first time when I thought about what I got in return. It’s hard to deny that there are so many things you gain from volunteering: meeting like-minded people who share your interests and an opportunity to change your community.
Volunteering in Hungary was also very special. It started because I wanted to be a part of something important and it is my indirect way of saying thank you to FLEX program. As a bonus it’s a great way to integrate into a new culture and meet new people. One of my favorite volunteering here was participating in the Shoebox project before Christmas. It is a yearly charity event in Hungary, and I was so surprised by how actively people responded to this projec: 60 000 shoeboxes were donated, and I am proud to say that 45 of them were collected by the FLEX alumni community. Maybe it’s not that much, but piece by piece we are building a helpful community with kind hearts.
I hope what I shared will show volunteering in a different light, as something much more than a graduation requirement. I am so grateful that I had an opportunity to do this and had the support of FLEX Alumni Hungary including the Budapest City Representatives Team, Polina, Anna, Aynur, Ainura and Eniko Garai as a representative of American Councils.