Mid-term training in Velenje (the 27th to 30th January 2020)

My 4-day mid-term training, organized by MOVIT, was great! I met new people of various nationalities. We stayed at a hostel in Velenje and we had the opportunity to discover the city and to visit a mine. We saw a castle in Velenje and we went to a coffee place to try some specialities. Velenje was a great town with a beautiful view on the top of the castle.

I preferred the mid-term training to the on-arrival training. Both were great but during the mid-term training, there were not so many people as during the on-arrival training and people could get closer with each other. Moreover, it was easier to plan our timetable and the organization of activities was better.

Some activities have been organized during my mid-term training to get more closely connected with the group.

For example, there was an activity about how to make a team work well together, which objectives and common goals the group should have to be confident and to work well together.

Our timetable and 'What is important for good team work'?

The secondary activity was about our experiences, what is our missions and what exactly it is that we do as volunteers. The trainers asked us for our opinion about the ESC experience, if our expectations have been met and how we see voluntary work. They asked us about the details about our host organizations and if we have to do projects alone or in a team. They also asked about difficulties which we encountered during our mission and how we solve them. Moreover, they asked us if our mentor or coordinator help us to support our ideas and our workshops.

One day during the mid-term, we had free time to organize our timetable as we wished to. We decided to talk about different subjects: youth exchanges, what are the different possibilities after our mission to stay in Slovenia (job opportunities, other volunteer experiences, internships, how to valorise our experience and to create our CV...). We talked also about youthpass and how to complete it.

During the afternoon, some volunteers have organized workshops using their skills. We talked about events in our different cities and what kind of activities our youth center can offer.I spoke, for example, about the French lessons that I organize every week and about the visit of the mine and the castle in Idrija.

Different social activities have been proposed during the mid-term training:

• two truths and one lie: each volunteer should write down two truths and one lie about their volunteering experience. Then, each volunteer must guess which sentence is a lie among three sentences.
• how to create the tallest tower as fast as possible: there were three different groups. Each group must make the biggest tower (with some cardboard, some paper and some tape) in 5 minutes and the winner is the group whichmanages to make the highest tower.

Moreover, another activity was to see if our workshops and activities have an impact for the local population and to share our different points of views. Then, the trainers prepared some questions and some kind of answers (a little..., maybe..., it's true..., it's false...,) and each volunteer had to choose what describes their situation and their missions best.

Then we had an exercice about what is our best way to learn a competence (writing, listening, speaking or learning by doing things). So each volunteer told their own approach and how they learn a new competence during their mission.

The last day of the training, the trainers proposed an exercise with an interview. We were in pairs, one was the recruiter and the other the candidate. Then, we had to explain our motivations and our different experiences about our internships, jobs and volunteering. The aim was to understand how to value our volunteering experience for the world of work. It was a funny exercise to practice and to play the role of the recruiter and of the candidate.

It was a great mid-term training, I met new people and the trainers were great and it was easy to talk with them. They gave us information about the possibilities to find other programs abroad in Europe and about other youth exchanges. I learned about new activities and had a great time! We had the opportunity to visit the mine in Velenje and to have more free time to organize our time and to get to know each other better.

Visit of the Mine in Velenje

The trainers gave us a sweat-shirt European Solidary Corps, a wooden toothbrushand a nice notebook called 'My Slovenian Solidiary'. The Slovenian Solidiary is good because there are some addresses about transport in Slovenia, some useful tips about travels, and some information about the Slovene culture and the Youthpass.

The group of volunteers during the mid-term training