Volunteers' Orientation Day

On Thursday 30th August, the volunteers selected for our Education and Integration Program gathered for a three-hour training session at Sting office. Our colleagues Elena, Roxane and Saleh provided them with the main hard and soft skills to be ready for their volunteering experience.

We started the day with a team building activity, allowing the volunteers to get to know each other and reveal their motivation for taking part in this program. We continued with a short activity on formal and non-formal education, so that the volunteers could reflect on the differences between the two methodologies and apply them to their experience.

Following that, since two of the schools involved in the program are refugee schools, Elena gave an introduction to migration in order to clear the misunderstandings surrounding the topic nowadays and insert STING’s programme into the wider international picture. For the two other schools, which are Egyptian, Roxane gave a presentation about poverty and education in Egypt, and how these two factors are strictly related and can positively or negatively influence each other. The scope of the program is indeed to create bonds between privileged and underprivileged realities, which we feel is really needed in Egyptian society. Building bridges and connecting different cultures and backgrounds is potentially life-changing for all the parties involved.

After those presentations, we could give the volunteers the guidelines and logistical detail regarding each school, the schedules of the visits, as well as the next steps to be followed. Finally, the volunteers asked questions and shared their fears and expectations.

The week of the 4th September, the volunteers visited the schools they will volunteer in and had the chance to ask all their question to the person in charge in each school. They are now thrilled to start their volunteering experience!