Erasmus+ Volunteering projects allow young people aged 17-30 to take part in unpaid and full-time volunteering activities for up to 12 months in another country within or outside the European Union.
Anna was an EVS Full-Time Volunteer with Volunteering Matters in South East Wales, where she befriended older people and people with disabilities.
“As for me, I am getting on very well after my EVS placement but I still miss the UK, the people and the befriending! It was really a fantastic experience. The 10 months with Volunteering Matters in the UK gave me time to get to know myself better and to decide what to study. I now study law in Vienna. There might not seem to be any connection between my law studies and my voluntary service, but I think that I learned more practical skills during my EVS placement than during the whole previous eight years at school – I am serious!
I can see how useful those skills are for now for the university. I think that I would not have been prepared like I was for university life if I had not been abroad. I am more interested in getting involved in voluntary activities as well and my English has improved a lot over the 10 months of volunteering. And, I made loads of friends from all over the world: Portugal, Spain, Germany, Britain. We are still in touch and some of them have already visited me in Vienna this year.
In two weeks I am going to visit a former EVS volunteer in Berlin. I am really looking forward to it. That is another thing that I have noticed after EVS: I am perfectly able to travel on my own now. These might seem just unimportant things to others, but for me, they are not. I think that EVS has been one of the best things that I have done so far and I have only noticed how much I learned when I went back home.”
Anna’s placement in the UK was made possible through Erasmus+ Volunteering Projects funding, often referred to as EVS (European Voluntary Service).
