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

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

Hello everyone! I'm the new volunteer

 Hi! My name is Louise, I'm 26 years old, and I'm from France. Ever since I was a child, I wanted to go abroad to see what life is like elsewhere. Two years ago, in 2022, I graduated with a Master’s degree in Law, specialising in European Law. That’s how I first heard about the European Solidarity Corps (but only from an academic perspective, as we were studying several European programs). During my studies, I volunteered every summer with a French organisation that supports migrants in different aspects of their lives. The first Summer, I helped organise activities for children living in a refugee center. And the following years, I joined the legal advice service, where I assisted migrants with their administrative process to obtain or renew their residence permits. It was a truly rewarding experience that helped me grow personally. After graduation, I felt lost. I knew from my volunteering experience that I wanted a job that had a positive impact on society, but I wasn't ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Volunteer Oct24. organizing the new house for volunteers!

Ciao, Hola and Hi!  I’m Rio Rojas Mayorga, and I’ve been helping set up the new apartment for volunteers. Let me tell you about the process of organizing this future home for us! In case you didn’t know, ESC volunteers previously lived in an apartment within the Caritas enclosure. However, for various reasons, it was decided to move us to a new place in the city center. The person in charge of preparing this apartment was Fabiano, a 65-year-old volunteer. Since he had multiple apartments and projects to manage, progress on this specific one was quite slow. So, to give him a hand, I offered my time and enthusiasm to compensate for my lack of any real knowledge of construction or renovation!  The house had almost everything we needed, but the problem was that it was all disassembled. It took a couple of months of assembling furniture, deep cleaning every piece, and rearranging the house fittings over and over. For most of the process, the end felt so far away. We started first w...
Post a Comment
Read more