Dates: 25. 8. 2018 – 25. 7. 2019
Venue: Godstone, Surrey and Alton, Hampshire, United Kingdom
Programme and action: Erasmus+, KA1, European Voluntary Service – long-term
Please read the EVS infopack.
Hosting organization: Treloar Trust and OOrpheus centre
Volunteer: Tomáš Homola
EVS report:
It is one year since I had gone to the European Voluntary Service to England, where I was a volunteer at Treloars School. The school provides education to students with physical and mental disabilities. The school offers primary and secondary education and is attended by students aged 5-25. The other students have out of school hours in nursing homes on campus.
My receiving organization was ICYE, which provides volunteers placement around the world, so I had from the beginning of my staying 10 days camp. The camp was supposed to prepare us for our volunteer experience and I had the opportunity to meet volunteers from all over the world. There were 10 volunteers in our Treloars project, 6 of them from the European Voluntary Service. Each volunteer worked in a different part of the school. I worked in elementary school and I was in a classroom with students aged 14-15. There were 5 students in the class and I had to learn a lot from the beginning because each student had a different level of communication. It was quite difficult to get used to the school environment because the school is big and I was lost in my early days. In my class there was the head teacher of the class and 6 other assistants. Fortunately, the other staff was very helpful and the head teacher who was also my mentor was so supportive.
My daily tasks were assisted to students in the classroom and to help them with the tasks. Later, when I learned to control electric wheelchairs, I picked up students from their nursing homes.
During the year, I attended a class with a variety of extracurricular activities and in the afternoon I attended optional student courses where I had the opportunity to meet students from other classes.
During the European voluntary service we had a camp from a national agency where I met other volunteers who were with me at EVS and ICYE organized another camp in the middle and at the end of my staying. I really enjoyed the camps in my volunteer year.
During the holidays which were during the school year I used the time to travel around the UK. I managed to visit Wales, Scotland, Cornwall and of course other places in England.
I evaluate this volunteer opportunity very positively and I know that I´ve done progress in my skills.
Tomáš Homola
