Last week I went to Warsaw to take part in my On Arrival training. We were 14 international volunteers all across Poland, all staying in the hotel.

Arriving to the capital!

I arrived in the city on Monday and while I was having lunch I started to meet some of the volunteers. The official presentations were soon after that. We got to talk a bit about ourselves and also about our different projects and cities. To break the ice and conclude the day, we made a Teams Challenge Race, where we got to join our knowledge and creativity to complete the different challenges.

Learning polish & discovering the Warsaw

On Tuesday we had our first morning class, we practiced some basic polish vocabulary and played some team building games. The morning was over and we had lunch (the food at the hotel was very nice, especially the desserts and the coffee break cakes!). After lunch we discussed some topics we would like to learn about Polish culture and divided into teams. The following day we would be venturing into the city and interviewing people so we needed to prepare what questions we would be asking. After dinner (at 18:00…) we decided to visit the city, we only had a few hours, so we decided to go to the old town.

The famous asking the locals mission!

It was already Wednesday and it was time for us to go to the city and interview some locals. My team and I decided to go to the Prague district and that’s where we started asking questions. We visited the old town again (this time with daylight) and got to see the Palace of Culture and Science tower. Without even realizing it was already time to go back to the hotel for lunch. After that we discussed the results of our different topics and shared with the other volunteers what we learned. The good part about having a far from the city center hotel is that it had a bowling alley inside, so we decided to go bowling that night. We were also able to play air hockey, darts, table football…

All about our rights, responsibilities & the meaning of volunteering and solidarity.

Thursday came and a Troubleshooter came to spend the day with us. We played a Kahoot to learn about our rights and responsibilities as volunteers. With that finished, we went to the next activity, where we had to learn how to deal with difficult situations that could emerge during our volunteering time. In the afternoon we had a very interesting discussion about the meanings of volunteering and solidarity. We were also able to have private meetings with the Troubleshooter. And we ended the day creating a vision board about our volunteering and what it meant for us.

Ending of the week.

Friday was the last formal day, we had time to talk a bit more, explain our vision boards and we finished by reflecting on the week and what we learnt. After lunch we decided to go back to the city center and we decided to visit Łazienki Park. We had our last dinner at the hotel and spent some more time together with all the volunteers.

We had the option to stay an extra night until Saturday and we all decided to do that. We visited some more things in the city and started saying goodbye to everyone leaving.

This week was an amazing experience where I got to learn a lot about Polish people and also met 13 amazing volunteers with different stories, nationalities, cultures… and got to learn so much about them as well.

Article by Maria,
Volunteer of ESC project.
On-Arrival training for European Solidarity Corps volunteers from 11.03.-15.03.2024.