ESC-report – Amanda Majuri, Kinderfreunde in Action

I did my European Solidarity Corps volunteering for Österreichische Kinderfreunde/Rote Falken in Vienna and Döbriach. It lasted for seven months.

While it is not easy and it really challenges you, it really is one of the best things you could do. I strongly recommend finding an organisation which works around topics that you are interested and taking the step to move to another country. On top of the million new memories, learning a new language and the life long frienships, these are my top three memories:

1. One of the best weeks I had was a five day connect.Kinderfreunde camp in the picture perfect Falkencamp. The camp is organised for unaccompanied and underaged refugees, who have come to a new country and just, well, deserve so much more. I got to be part of the leaders of the camp, meet some amazing people, get to know other cultures and most of all enjoy camping.
2. Against all my expectations, the Mid Term-training organised by the National Agency was super cool. I made it a week in Salzburg: I went there the weekend before and spent some time with volunteers there. It also happened to be the last weekend of the ÖBB summer ticket (which you should definitely buy if you’re in Austria during summer!) We went to Passau, Germany and Innsbruck – what else would you want to do during weekends than see two new places? On top of that the training itself gave some well needed time to reflect on the time spent in Austria as well as think about the future. Our group was also suuper nice and I bet that without them it wouldn’t have been even half as much fun!
3. The third thing is for sure the traditions and culture you get to see and experience. There is so much to see: museums, festivals, remembrance events for example for holocaust and whatever you can think of! The amount of people participating, the enthiusiasm and the pure dedication is unbelievable and totally worth witnessing. There is not enough time to see everything – that’s yet a reason to come back.