Since we are the EVS volunteers of Udruga IKS in Petrinja, we were invited to participate in a four-day long training organized by “Agencija Mobilnost I Programe EU” in Crvenog križa Orahovica, Slavonia. Together with all the 13 EVS volunteers, who have just arrived to Croatia, we took an active part in the workshops to get to know better the EU project and also Hrvatska.

After a short introduction, we learned more about how the EVS works: Rights and responsibilities of the European Commission, the National Agency, Host/ Sending Organizations, the supervisor, the coordinator, the mentor and the volunteer. Our trainers showed us that besides learning at school, there are informal and non-formal learning methods which we are definitely experiencing during our EVS.

Through the different types of activities and games we became aware of the hidden parts of culture and the conflicts that could arise because of the different cultural backgrounds. Our hosts organized a typical Croatian dinner and night in order to enjoy the Croatian culture. After the dinner, we gave a short presentation about our own cultures and celebrated our multiculturalism.

On the last day we had the opportunity to learn about conflict management and how to communicate in an assertive way by role plays. We were talking about the prejudices and stereotypes of nationalities and how to deal with the culture shock and difficulties you can face with while you live abroad.

As a conclusion of the workshops, we came up with our personal learning plan in which we defined our goals and how to achieve them in order to complete our Youthpass in a satisfactory way.