The Multicultural Language Cafe

As I wrote before in my introduction, I'm a Dutch EVS volunteer working in Poland. I became a member of Semper Avanti's 'Multicultural Language Cafe' in May 2015. My project lasts nine months, so with less than one month to go it's about time to tell you what I am doing over here. (Oh, how I wish I discovered this website earlier...)

My host organisation, Semper Avanti - often shortened to 'Semper' - promotes and supports various projects related to international youth exchanges and cooperations. When it comes to EVS, this association is an accredited sending, coordinating and receiving organisation. Right now Semper hosts (or 'receives') eleven EVS volunteers. A pretty big number in the EVS world, as far as I know. Other volunteers that I met and that are not under Semper's umbrella, usually have only a few 'colleagues' - and some have none.

The eleven volunteers hosted by Semper - including me - all work for the so-called 'Multicultural Language Cafe' or MLC. The MLC is not some kind of non-profit bar run by volunteers. (To be honest, sometimes I wish it was.) Instead, it used to be a place where young people could go after school, to learn in an informal way, discuss important topics (related to human rights), and to organize local cultural events, together with the EVS volunteers. Today the name still reminds us of this 'gathering place', but instead of children and youngsters coming to the MLC, nowadays the MLC visits them.

The location changed, but not the tasks. Almost every weekday, at least one of the MLC volunteers goes to a kindergarten, a school or another place, to show his or her country, or to conduct a workshop related to human rights and intercultural education. Other common tasks include organizing a Cultural Evening (a public event in which the volunteer or volunteers from a particular country put that country in the limelights), organizing or participating in projects related to Semper's main goals, promoting EVS, and - last but not least - writing entries for our weblog. As you may have guessed, writing blog notes is one of my favourite things to do, but actually I dislike none of our tasks. Eight months ago I was very nervous when I had to give a presentation, which dimmed the positive feelings I had afterwards. But soon these nerves got tired, because I have to stand in front of a crowd at least once a week, and eventually most nerves decided to quit. Hurray! Now I can even look forward to giving a presentation...

Apart from the common duties, we all have the possibility to come up with our own ideas - as long as they fit within our projects. In my case, I started a Dutch language course. In university I gained lots of theoretical knowledge about teaching languages, and the Multicultural Language Cafe offered an opportunity to gain some practical experience as well.

Now you know, more or less, what my EVS project entails. If you want to know more about the Multicultural Language Cafe, feel free to take a look at our weblog - just google "MLC Semper Avanti". And one more thing: szczęśliwego Nowego Roku! (Happy new year!)