How to choose EVS projects by Anna

So here I am again. A lot of people ask me about how did I go for the EVS, how it was, especially for non-European citizen so I will tell you this story to give an answer to some of your questions.

The first thing that you need to have is patience. Huge patience at any stage of your application.There's no "right time" to go for EVS project, no special reason. It's just that at some point in your life you realize that you're ready to apply for the project and go until the end of the process.

My path began two years before I got here.When I was 17 and entered my university I thought that I just can't live my life this way.I don't want to lock myself in the circle of life that narrow-minded people live in. That's why I joined three different social organizations. I won't give all their names, but one is NGO, second is International Student-run organization and the third one is UNICEF. I became a volunteer in each of them and the only thing I knew was that I want to learn something. I gained my experience within these two years and worked hard while studying. 

It was important for me to realize what exactly I want to do in my life and I may be one of few lucky enough people who entered exactly needed studies. I study management of socio-cultural events that include everything, beginning with social projects, exhibitions and finishing with fashion shows organization. My field of studies is so wide, that I had to work hard to get an understanding of how to manage things. So in a year I already had experience in Team-Leading, project management, marketing and designs. And though I faced a lot of bull-shit happening, I may call those two years as the best in my life.

When I turned 18, I have the first time in my life heard about the EVS. To tell you more- it's European Volunteering Service that each person from 18 to 30 years old can enter. It's run in Europe, but still, there are some projects where people can be involved in activities in other countries, such as India, Indonesia, they just start to develop that types of projects, but I already know one person that did his EVS in India.

EVS is more or less once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you definitely have to use, this program allows you to go max for a year to any other country to work as a volunteer in some NGO, project, initiative or even in a Zoo. My choice was Spain, since I just heard about that it also works there.

There are thousands of projects run in the world: work with elder people in Belgium, sports activities with children in Italy, education for children in Poland. You can find literally anything for your taste. So I started to think -what I really want to do within this year that I can take?

The key to getting information about the projects is to have sending organization that informs you about all the news. Mine is amazing NGO "Stella", located in Kharkiv, Ukraine. In fact-best projects I have ever met so far are the one that are offered to volunteers of sending organization by its partners. They are always more reliable and you may actually be chosen.

That's the exact way how it worked for me-I applied for the project VISION, offered to "Stella" by NGO "EUROACCION" from Spain. I was super interested in everything that project can give me, that's why I didn't hesitate to apply.

Selection process always depends on the organization that you apply to. In my case-I was contacted for the interview three weeks after submitting my CV and Motivation Letter. The interview went in a funny way, but still, after the month of waiting I was contacted and told the news- I passed. And then there was this crazy month of madness with visa documents.

Finally, I had to wait for a month more and as soon as I got my long-term Visa, my organization bought me tickets here.

This is just a small part of my long story, but I hope it was useful for you. Next time I will try to tell about what you may need to apply for a Visa to go on EVS and how EVS runs.

At the end, all I want to say is that if you'll have any questions, don't hesitate to ask in comments below so we could reply on all of them faster than in a week:)