Dates: 29 September 2020 – 28 September 2021
Venue: Eupen, Belgium
Programme and action: European Solidarity Corps, volunteering projects – long-term
Please read the infopack..
Hosting organization: Rotes Kreuz Belgium – Info Integration
Volunteer: Markéta Tvrdá
ESC report:
My year at Info-Integration was anything but ordinary. Not only the various activities and projects, but also the Corona pandemic and the floods in eastern Belgium contributed to a year I will probably never forget – which is also the point of volunteering.
My arrival in Belgium coincided with the second lockdown, so it was clear that not all projects could go ahead as planned. Nevertheless, I used this time to digitise the school animations ‘Culture and Identity’, ‘Racism and Prejudice’, ‘Flight and Asylum’ and ‘Human Rights’.
At the same time, we decided to continue the project “Arrival and life in Eastern Belgium”. This is a project of interviews with participants of the integration course who talk about their new life in Eastern Belgium. This project was first carried out by the first Info-Integration volunteer and last year it was complemented by new interviews which were printed in a booklet of the same name. I am very happy that this year the booklet containing all the new interviews has also been published. A total of 13 interviews with people who have found a new home in the Eifel region in eastern Belgium. At the same time, in the spring, with the help of my colleagues, I started a new project: a project of interviews with young people with a migrant background, most of whom came to Belgium as unaccompanied minors. The aim of the project was to find out what are the main difficulties these people face.
In the meantime, I regularly updated our new Instagram page with various posts, such as Q&As, recipes or advertisements for events. The Instagram page was set up to highlight the work of Info-Integration even during the Corona pandemic.
Looking back, I am sure that despite all the circumstances, the decision to come to Eupen and spend a year here was the right one. Thank you so much to the lovely team and everyone else I met!
Markéta Tvrdá
