Skip to main content

Hej, hello, ciao!

Hello!


My name is Karin and I am the new ESC volonteer here at Caritas in Jesi. I am 19 years old and come from Sweden. 

I graduated from highschool in June 2025, where I studied a social science and classical choir music program. Although I loved it, it was a very stressful time and when I graduated I was mentally exhausted. I had no plans on going abroad or volunteering. 

So, after highschool, I worked at a café, in elderly care and studied a night course in philosophy. I really enjoyed my work and found my studies interesting, but after having had the time to recover that I needed I realised I wanted to do something more with my time. I wanted to do something that would challenge me and help me grow, as well as doing something to help other people. 

A year earlier, I had heard of the possibility to do volunteering through an Erasmus program. Although I was not sure that was what I wanted to do, I decided to check the possibilities they had to offer. Since I have studied French in school, France was the obvious choice at first. However, when I looked at the volunteering opportunities, the one that caught my eye was an opportunity in Jesi, Italy.

The volunteering tasks in the description were all aimed at helping the community and those in need in some way. It really seemed like things that would make a difference and that I would enjoy working with. Although I was frightened by the fact that I do not speak any Italian, I thought "It does not hurt to try" and I sent my application.

Two months after my first inteview I arrived in Jesi, and I have now been here for 4 weeks. The first week was a rollercoaster of emotions. I was so excited to be here, to experience life in a different country and to learn about the volunteering opportunity, but also terrified. What if I would not enjoy the work, what if the language barrier would be too big and what if I would simply miss home too much?


Rio, me (Karin) and Emma the day I arrived

After a while, the shock of it all settled. Now that I have been here one out of 6 months, I cannot yet say what my entire volunteering experience will be. What I can say though is that the first weeks have been filled with warm welcomings, interesting work, good food and lovely people. If things continue the way they are, I will only have good things to say about the time I spent here.


I look forward to learning more about the work at Caritas and the community here, and growing both personally and professionally!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

European Solidarity Corps and Servizio Civile Universale volunteers

Ciao! It's Louise. Today I would like to speak about the connection that exists between ESC and "Servizo civile" (SCU) volunteers. As an ESC volunteer, my experience is different from the SCU volunteers in several ways. For one, I am an international volunteer coming to Italy for six months, whereas the SCU volunteers are Italians staying in Caritas for one whole year. Second, the SCU volunteers work in just one service for a three-month period (Centro d'ascolto, cucina, emporio or reception). I, on the other hand, move between different areas of Caritas each day, giving me a wider variety of tasks and responsibilities. This also means it took me longer than them to adapt and become efficient, but after just a few weeks or months, I became more independent in every service, whereas they have to adapt to a new service every three months. I met the SCU volunteers of Caritas during my second week when they returned from their training. I had the chance to work alongside ...
Post a Comment
Read more

My experiences with migrants in Caritas

Hello everyone! It's Louise. Today, I'd like to share with you two actions in which I recently participated. They taught me a lot, both on a human level and in terms of the concrete challenges involved in welcoming and supporting migrants in Italy. Welcoming migrants on their arrival at the port   Two weeks ago, I went with Marco D’Aurizio (President of Caritas Jesina) and other workers of Caritas Ancona to welcome a group of 276 migrants who had arrived on the Ocean's Viking (a boat that rescues migrants at sea) at Ancona’s port. We were there at 8am, under grey skies and a cold wind, ready to hand out breakfast: a bottle of water, an apple, a filled brioche, and tea for those who wanted it. The reception was very closely supervised by the police, which made the organisation very rigorous, but also a little tense. At first, we let people sit down, take time to eat and warm up. But soon, the police were pressing us to get the migrants onto the buses waiting nearby. So, we h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volunteer Oct24. 3 months so far!

Ciao, Hola and Hi!  I’m Río Rojas Mayorga and it's been 3 months since I'm an ESC volunteer here in Caritas Jesina. Let me update you briefly about my experience! The arrival and first week in Caritas was a mix of emotions between the excitement to start and the confusion of all the new people and information we were bombarded with. At first we didn't have a schedule and it was a little bit messy but, I'm glad I shared so much time with my project partner; it was nice having someone in the same situation. First month Once the schedule was set, we had to adjust not only to the work but also to the people we shared the time with. As all the services are done with local people, at first it was difficult the communication as I had no words in Italian, but I was gladly surprised to find out my will of talking and sharing was lovely appreciated and corresponded, I found out the language barrier was a challenge but i wasn’t fighting it alone.  My birthday arrived eventually an...
Post a Comment
Read more