My very special person: a partner for life

MY SPECIAL PERSON

My special person is very special. We met each other during a Youth Exchange in The Netherlands around 4 years ago, when the program was still Youth in Action, and he was the coordinator and facilitator of the project. His name is Eddie Wolters, and thanks to his ability to carry on such kind of projects, I got fascinated by this world. It was a world I never thought could exist. He showed me that it is possible to bring youngsters together, where cultural differences are just positive and learning elements; he showed me that exchanges are for everyone, there is no race, no discrimination. Eddie had the ability to create friendships, to coach people, letting them taking initiative and thinking by their own. It was something I had never experienced before and the exchange had motivated me so much that I asked Eddie if I could help him and the Dutch team (he is from The Netherlands) to make future projects together. Eddie gave me more responsibilities, asked me to write ideas for the project, collaborate in the daily program and even carrying out the project activities. We have carried out several exchanges together, and about two years ago I decided to participate in an EVS project, under Olde Vechte organisation, one of the organisations where Eddie performs as youth worker (the other one is SKW, located in the small village of Nieuw-Weerdinge, North-Eastern part of Netherlands). Unfortunately, the project was not approved, but SKW had the idea of writing a EVS project themselves, for which I would be the participant. It was a very long time (10 years) since their last EVS project, and they wanted to give it a try once again, with the objective of bringing the community closer to a foreigner, and breaking the barriers set by xenophobia. My mentor did not speak English (at least did not want to), and the project objective never worked out. I was throwing my EVS experience away…community did not care about foreigners and more we got in contact, more we would get far apart; soon I had become the famous outsider in that village, more like an attraction than someone trying to bring different cultures together. The person I knew the most was Eddie, and I started sharing my frustrations with him, saying I would like to know what EVS’rs in Olde Vechte do, and that I would like to try one of their working places. Eddie would coach me and help me undertaking every step, not giving me the answers, but supporting me in finding them myself. With all that time sharing experiences and emotions with him, I was developing another kind of interest; I had feelings for him and apparently, he had feelings for me too. I still cannot describe how people feel it from each other, but we could see that there was a click between us. And then the problem: how to keep professional, working with our brains, when our hearts would say otherwise? It was my experience, the EVS, and I could not let it slip through my hands because of my feelings. So we found a solution together. Eddie showed me that we both could commit to make both things work. He kept coaching me as he did since the first time we met and did not mix private with professional. He motivated me to keep believing in my objectives and mostly in myself. When there were difficult situations (for instance discussions at the work place or missing home), you would help me to deal professionally with such situations and you would support me solving them. It was really useful to me, because it is difficult for me to deal with my emotions, I can react very impulsive and overact with anyone, which of course, at a working place, is highly unacceptable. Eddie helped me develop not only my social skills, putting me in contact with strangers and asking me to go after what I wanted, but also professional skills, which I never really had because I had never worked before, and these are skills and lessons which I surely will carry with me for my whole life. An EVS is already a life-time experience, and its success or failure, depends mostly on you (participant). But a good leader (that is kind of how I saw him, someone leading paths and showing multiple ways) surely influences your performance and belief on an EVS project.

To know how to separate private from professional turned out to work fine. Surely it was something new for me but it was for him as well, hence somehow we both had a lot to learn with this experience. It is also very important to know how to separate those two things at work, and you only know how to do it or deal with it only when you are living it. During the EVS I was also able to focus more on what I wanted to do once the project was over, and thanks to it I have also found in Netherlands a university course matching my personality and my life/career goals. Eddie motivated me once again to also use my EVS to help me developing skills for the study as well. The course is Equine Business and Economics and in fact, my favourite EVS working place was a foundation which hosts/rescues retired horses. Thanks to my experience in The Netherlands, I found out I wanted to stay, I liked the culture and the Dutch lifestyle. I applied to that course, and I was accepted. After my EVS, me and Eddie kept working together more than ever on new projects, together we wrote our (both) first training; together we improved each other by giving feedback to each other, by exchanging ideas and skills, which I had acquired thanks to all project I had joined. As I developed as a person I also developed in the relation, professional and sentimental. Participants of projects we carried out would approach me saying that they could not believe me and Eddie had a relationship because we maintained our professionalism very well. It is a satisfaction to hear this kind of compliment; it means that people around us could also notice that we could keep professional. Not always easy, since working together also means that clashes may occur and despite a relationship, these issues need to be solved professionally as well. Another skill earned during my EVS experience.

Together Eddie and I have also opened our own non formal group, the Cherry group, for which we apply projects of all themes and of all kinds. When I think about projects, I think about Eddie, not only because of a relationship, but because I remember the impact he created on me when I joined my first exchange, and also when I see that he keeps creating that same impact on many other youngsters, giving them more opportunities, opening new doors for them, showing them thousands of possibilities to make them feel fulfilled in their lives, motivating them to go after what they want. I see in those youngsters the same smile, the same tears and the same blink I had 4 years ago, and it is so satisfactory to see that the same, and even better results keep achieving youngsters all around the world, thanks to projects, thanks to European programs, thanks to organisations, thanks to potential youth workers, like Eddie Wolters is.

My special person was not only special for showing me how to be more open to the world, but also to make use of the opportunities life has put in front of me; to know before judge; to include what everyone else excludes; to open doors which others did not know they could be opened; to disseminate results instead of only thinking about them; to know that exchanges are not only an activity, but lessons which mark every one of us for life.