L’esperienza di Sergio

Sergio Pinillos, Volontario spagnolo, racconta attraverso il video e l’articolo a seguire, la sua esperienza durante “Play an Active Role”, Progetto di volontariato svolto presso Uniamoci Onlus. Il Progetto è cofinanziato dal Corpo europeo di solidarietà dell’Unione europea.

Play an Active Role – Several activities for a great experience

My first role in the association was, basically, to find my space. Meet users, understand their concerns and learn the basics of Italian. 

During the first 2/3 weeks I was, mostly, tacking part of the meetings of European projects, helping in the arts activities organized by other volunteers and office work, which was to write a blog, attend online Italian lessons and write some document. Later, Carlo asked for my collaboration in his History and Geography activity in which I was looking for photos, maps and graphic information to complement his classes and help him during the presentations. At the same time, I also assisted in the French lesson (and later in the English lesson) with the computer, projecting or searching for information.

Later, when I was able to perform better in the language I started my theater project which I organized in the office hours. The classes were organized into three exercise groups:

– Warming up

– Improvisation

– Quality of movement

I am not a theatre professional, nor am I used to working with people with physical disabilities, it was a challenge to carry out this activity with an acceptable quality and for users to have fun. Normally on stage there were between 2 and 5 people so we could move well while the others watched. We go from basic things like not turning their backs on the audience to understanding a little bit about the progression of reactions. All this in a passive way. Of course, along with my activity, I continued to participate in the day-to-day life of the association, art, history, language activities etc…

We did a clean-up on a beach near the association with the help of a school’s students.

We prepare a carnival float in which we involve users from the creative process to the creation of the different decorations.

We also participated in the Christmas market selling things from the association and promoting the association, there I played the bagpipe to give something new.

In short, it has been an unforgettable experience, I have learned and grown as a person. I’ve met a lot of wonderful people and I’ve known myself more.

I wish it hadn’t ended so abruptly, but life sometimes is like that.

I have only good words to this European project, to the Association and to the persons that I’ve met. THANK YOU ALL!!