the best part was that we were around 50 ex-evs, all very interventive and full of suggestions. on sunday the national agency came to listen to our suggestions and i really got the feeling that they will do something about somethings.
if someone is interested, here are my impressions:
- i was so lucky with my evs, that everything went so great, that i dind't know how i would react if everything went wrong like it went with a lot of people.
- i got the idea that the non-eu countries with non accredited organizations are quite tricky. a girl didn't receive any money, had to work in fish shops to get some, and the ngo wouldn't pay her way back, really bad.
- a lot of volunteers went to countries in africa, like angola, mozambique, cape vert and s.tomé e prinícpe. really interesting their experiences. i learned a lot about how sometimes african countries depend way too much on voluntarism and don't develop any entrepreneurship among their inhabitants. and how living with no electricity or warm water for a year can really change your mind about our daily "luxuries".
- macedonia is completely crazy country.
- the main suggestions were to put more pressure on the sending organization to analyse how good the hosting organizations is; to create a sort of ranking of ngo's, like couchsurfing; to set as a rule that the volunteer should have linguistic support starting in the first month in the country, etc.
but the best moments were this informal ones where we would just talk about funny things that happened, how the greeks are so slow, the macedonians so crazy, how the brazilians think the portuguese don't bathe and are all bread-makers ehhehe.
really nice.