My name is Mariam, 23 years old and I am from Georgia. At the beginning of October, I came to Poland to start my voluntary project at Szkoła Podstawowa nr 24 w Białymstoku. I will be staying in Poland till June 2024.
During my second week, I went to Warsaw for on-arrival training. There, I met other volunteers from other countries. We learned about the European Solidarity Corps project and our responsibilities during our volunteering. Together with other volunteers I went sightseeing in Warsaw and saw lots of beautiful places.
After coming from Warsaw, I went to different classes at school to present my country - Georgia. I talked about our culture, cuisine, and history. Many students already knew some of the Georgian food, like the famous "Khinkali" and "Khachapuri". They also learned different words in Georgian language: Hello (გამარჯობა), How are you? (როგორ ხარ?), My name is (ჩემი სახელია), Thank you (მადლობა). :)
I spend lots of time in the common room and the students and I play many games and go to the gym and backyard. On Mondays, we have Games Day, where I bring different games for students to play. They already have favorite games which we play every Monday.
We have an English Language club for younger and older students. For younger I try to make meetings more fun, so I bring many games for different topics. Older students want to focus more on speaking, so I try to have exercises that require lots of speaking. During our first meeting, I brought many questions to get to know each other better.
At school, we already cooked Georgian food called "khachapuri". It is a traditional Georgian meal that looks like pizza but is filled with lots of cheese. Students enjoyed cooking it. They prepared dough and cheese and loved how it tasted. :)
These have been my nearly two months of experience in Poland so far. I love spending time with children at school and I am super excited about the next 7 months. :))