Yesterday, I lay aimlessly on my bed, staring at the ceiling fan rotating at its lowest speed, wondering how I barely noticed its absence over the past year. Hoping to find something better to do, I picked up my phone and saw that I had a message from a friend – another volunteer who’d returned to Bangalore from Berlin last week. “Me too” read the message, a response to one I’d sent a few hours earlier saying “I want to…
It has been 1 year since I moved to Germany for the Weltwärts South-North programme. The whole experience has been eye-opening and also inspirational. I got the opportunity to experience many different spaces, cultures and places over the last 1 year. In my project, I was able to interact with children from so many different countries, and also work with people from different places. We got to share stories, experiences from all our countries, and this was an enriching experience….
My journey here in Berlin is almost over, I can’t believe it’s been 10 months here, feels like just yesterday I was getting ready to come over here. Well, Berlin is very colourful in summer, I enjoyed summer better. I work here in Speilmittel, where they make toys, conduct workshops with kids, seminars etc. I was involved in a lot of creativity involved here. Since I was very interested in creativity, I got to learn a lot from them like…
Somehow, time has flown past me and it is exactly 10 months to the date since I first set foot on German ground. I still remember that moment, stepping out into the bright September sunshine at Berlin’s Tegel airport, heaving a sigh of relief on seeing somebody right outside holding a sheet of paper with our names (and a friendly little flower) on it, and wondering if the rest of my year in Europe was going to be just as…
Hello, I am Manjunath Kannal, 100th Monkey facilitator from Mysore zone. I am working for the last 4 years with FSL-India, for their long term and short term programs. My first session with the Vijaya High School students was very exciting. I introduced our 100th Monkey program to the children. Some laughed and some smiled because of the whacky name ‘100th Monkey’. So, I decided to share the story of the 100th monkey on the Japanese island of Koshima, from the…
I am Ajith Kumar, working as a Weltwärts volunteer in Germany. Right now, I am working in a small city called Meschede, in an old age home as a house technician. My working hours are from 8:30 am to 4:30 pm. I work together with 4 other people and their names are Martin, Uli, Kamphone and Thorsten. I also travelled a lot and made new friends. In February, I visited München and Ochtrup and also went to Holland. I stayed…
My name is Thamizhselvam Velmurugan, a volunteer at the German Red Cross, at Billerbeck, Germany. I am working as a caregiver at HausBaumgarten where 24 people live. My role at my workplace is to go for a walk with the residents, help the cook to prepare meals and to take the residents shopping. I am staying in an apartment near my workplace, at about 650 mtr distance, along with 2 other volunteers from Tanzania. January was a normal month –…
Day 1/ July the 5th : We began this diary from the second (and last) plane to India. We’ve done scale in Dubai, because there is no straight flight from Madrid to Bangalore. This journey to India is strange for ourselves, we feel an emotional mixing: a bit of uncertainty, passion and joy. The flight from Madrid to Dubai took 7 hours approximately and the next one to the 5th largest Indian city took 3 1/2 more hours. It seems…
Every day in Berlin is new and hardly mundane. The things I get to experience and see are so culturally rich, and I am forever grateful to FSL-India for the growth and exposure I have received. The last month, like every other month, has been quite an exciting journey for me. My work with children has been much better, especially with the good weather and all the different activities we get to do with them. My colleagues are quite nice…
Diverse, intoxicating, engaging – these words describe India on the first sight, very good for me. I’ve never been to a country, where, depending where you are, the landscape, the culture itself, the food and the whole life is so different and still the same. That’s why I was completely overpowered when I arrived. Everything was loud, everything was colorful and everything was full. To be honest, this can be quite exhausting, so I was quite happy when I arrived…