Melanie

I am Melanie Rempel and I`m from Germany. I turned 20 five days before my EVS started.

My family is very big, I have six brothers and sisters and I love all of them :-)

My parents speak Russian very well because my family´s origin is Russia.

Some of my hobbies are cooking, riding motorcycle and my favourite hobby is travelling.

Before I came to Nava on October the 4th my life was characterized by ups and downs. I changed my mind very often what to do with my future. In addition to that i tried for three years to get an education, but only received cancellations.

This was very sad for me because it encouraged me.

I also changed my opinion what job I really want to do.....

This year I finally got a commitment to start an education agency. But was this what I want to do for the rest of my life....? I asked myself this question very often and I have aborted before I even begun.

How many times have I secretly thought about a year abroad. It would be great to learn Russian, but I could not find any open vacancies in Russia, everything I found there was required to speak english.

I was afraid to speak english so I denied it and pushed ahead my wish.

I had no idea what to do so I just applied for study places.

one day I got an email from the internet site Ausland.org where I created an account long time ago but forgot it.

So I checked the site and found a project in Estland (Narva) where RUSSIAN is required.... This seemed perfect for me!! Without wasting time I applied for this project.

It was going so fast and I received an email from the Eine-Welt-EV. Leipzig in Germany. -- Letter of motivation and CV in English. I started immediately and was very happy to hear from then very soon. Somebody wanted to skype with me, from Narva. It sounded so awesome except the fact that i have to speak english.

I overcome my fear and skyped on a sunny Sunday morning with the responsible person from the EVS project. After a few minutes I had the Job!!!

One application -- one commitment. And now I am here.

Before EVS i was thinking about work and travel. But i had no money for this so I rejected those thoughts.

It is much more fulfilling to spend voluntarily time in a foreign country, work there, gain new experiences, meet new friends---- EVS.

My host organization is called MTÜ Uus Sild.

That´s where I work with adults who have different kinds of problems, for example unemployment or physically disabled. They are all very friendly :-D

They want to learn German, so I can give German lessons. I also make new  and very interesting experiences with disabled people. I never thought this would be so great and full filling for me.

My expectations are helping other people by making them happy and helping an organization and leaving good impressions.

The only fear I had was not to get along with the English language, but that was gone by the first day.

In my opinion everybody who has the chance to make a voluntary social year should to it!!

I enjoy the time and I hope you will feel the same.

Yours,

Melanie