Hi!
I’m Eurielle from France and I’m 21 years old. I came to Germany because I wanted to experiment new things and to discover more about myself. I can assure you I’m still discovering new passions and skills. I work in Tobias Schule which is a specific school for children with disabilities. The school uses a pedagogy focused on the development of the intellectual, artistical, and practical skills. They learn a lot of things not taught in regular schools. For example, they learn how to cook their own meals (which are always vegetarians and tasty), but also to make sculpture, pottery, and the area I work every day in: gardening.
I really appreciate my work there; my mentor is very kind and inspiring. He’s always asking me about my feelings, and he helps me to understand how to deal with the personalities of the students. I learn a lot about the different kinds of disabilities thanks to him and we have very good moments together. My work there consists in helping the children to work, we pick up the leaves to put them into the compost or in the chicken coop. During cold days we lit a big fire to burn branches. We also take care of the chickens by feeding them and cleaning the chicken coop.
I also go once a week to the swimming pool and to the host where my role is to look after the children. As a musician I really wanted to be part of the school orchestra, so the music teacher kindly included me as a xylophone player. Our first performance was for the Christmas show, and it was great!
The school is very pleasant to work in. Playgrounds are big and surrounded by woods and there is even a small lake. When I came there for the first time, I was very impressed by the fact that there is no separation between the school and the forest just next to it and there are no barriers to avoid students to fall in the lake. It’s very different from France where there is a lot of rules about security… I also like the fact that there are few students by class which allows us to be more at ease with them and to consider each child with his/her difficulties.
When I came in Germany, my English wasn’t so good, and my German was very bad. The two first months were difficult, I was always exhausted after school because of the work and the fact to listen all day people speaking German. But now, after three months I’m feeling better, I start to understand more what the children say. To communicate with them, I usually use a mix between English and German and some children speak a little English and some of them even speak French! Each day at the school is different because I do various things with many children, and I get to know them better every day.
About my life in Bremen, I live with four other flatmates who are now my friends. We are very close, and we do many things together such as travelling, cooking, playing games, looking for news furniture for the flat, watching movies… We are also very close with the other volunteers in Bremen, and we do some parties and we travel together. We have already planned some new destinations to go and I’m looking forward to spending more time together.
Eurielle
Eurielle is hosted by Tobiasschule und Kindergarten e.V. on our project financed by the European Solidarity Corps and Jugend für Europa.
