Portugal
participants
- Allow exchange students to get in contact with the local community;
- Show elderly people that ESN and exchange students care about their health and well-being;
- Sharing cultural experiences with older and wise people;
- Allow exchange students to do continuous volunteering during their studies abroad;
- Allow exchange students to teach and learn some manual skills from elderly and vice versa;
- Give exchange students and elderly a different afternoon.
We gave our international students the opportunity to spend a happy afternoon with the elderly from Centro de Dia do Bonfim. Since Carnival was about to arrive, during this afternoon we made some handmade masks and decorated them for Carnival. The students helped the elderly to cut, paint and decorate the masks and then they all took some funny pictures with their handmade masks!!
After this event, we gave the opportunity to the international students to become a weekly volunteer in this institution during their stay in Porto. Through ESN Porto, we made some feedback forms and timetables to organize our international students.
We could count with about 30 people (including exchange students, ESNers and elderly). All the exchange students that were present showed interest in continue volunteering at the center during the rest of their stay. They are being organized in a weekly schedule. All the elderly were super amazed with the activity we had prepared for them and they were very happy with the exchange students presence. They mentioned more than once that having all the young students there really made them feel good and valued.
