Participant’s Name: Filo Poggioli
Project: EU.MOTION 20.25 Communication
Type of Programme: ESC Volunteering (European Solidarity Corps)
Organizer: Associação Mais Cidadania, Lisbon
Sending Organization: Xena Centro Scambi e Dinamiche Interculturali, Italy
My experience in Lisbon has been so enriching and full of different experiences, but there’s one thing I will always cherish as a great memory, because I think it’s something that made me change my perspective on a lot of things, and the name of this is +Skillz.
+Skillz is a youth center in Lisbon of which Mais Cidadania (my hosting organization) is a partner of. They are open every weekday for the whole afternoon, and kids from 6 to 24 years old can come there after school as a place to gather, study and do workshops and many different activities.
This +Skillz is a super important place for the young community of Lisbon, that allows them to have more social interactions outside of school, in a more non-formal context, where they can explore their passions more and learn at the same time, thanks to all the activities that are organized daily by the youth workers there.
I cannot talk about +Skillz without mentioning the amazing people that work there: Cátia, Laurent and Stock, who are the bones and soul of the place. They make the magic happen. They put their hours at the service of these kids in order to allow them to have a safe space where they can express themselves and learn at the same time.
These three people are super inspiring to me: they have great patience, they love the kids of the youth center and they really know how to involve them in the best way.
If the kids keep coming to the youth center, it means that they’re doing it right.
Then comes them, the kids. The youth center is super diverse: there are kids of all ages, from little eight-year-olds to teenagers and young adults, both Portuguese and people with migrant backgrounds, from Nepal, Angola, Mozambique and more. It’s a place where skin colour, background, age and social placement don’t matter at all.
If anyone asked me a year ago if I ever saw myself working with kids in a youth center I would’ve probably answered no, because this activity never even crossed my mind (in my “normal life” back in Italy, I’m a cook), but it became my routine to go to the youth center and be with the kids sometimes just hanging out, sometimes playing with them, sometimes doing workshops together.
I was lucky, because I discovered that a lot of them love to cook, so that’s always my go-to activity: we’ve made chocolate cakes together, we’ve made pizza, chocolate salami, bubble tea, and next week we’re going to try making ice cream, to fight the heat and to have a nice “lanche” ; )
Making connections with youngsters has always been a challenge for me, but thanks to +Skillz I’m learning how to connect with them in a way in which I’m like their peer, not in a formal ”teacher” way, but more in the sense of being someone they can play with but also rely on.
This experience in the youth center has given me so much, thanks to both the kids and the workers: I learnt patience, I learnt organization (because sometimes I also dive into the bureaucratic part of it) and I learnt especially to embrace that little chaos that comes in when you have a lot of kids to take care of, and not to struggle to always reach perfection. Even with the limited resources that +Skillz has, we always manage to find a way to make it work, so this has given me a great new perspective not just on work, but on life in general.
I am so grateful to +Skillz, to Cátia, Laurent, Stock and Mafalda, to all the other volunteers, to the kids that passed by the youth center, Preezma, Arush, Zé, Adama, Diana, Emmanuel, Danniel, Ricardo, Nidy, Rodrigo, Hype, Deepika, Shirsti, Helena and everyone else, and I hope that as much as they have left an impact in my life, I will also leave at least a nice memory of that guy from Italy who was cooking with them.
Thank you for this experience, forever yours,
Filo
