Hi everybody. I’m Ella from Germany and I take part of the European Voluntary Service in Pärnu for about 6 months. To be at Nooruse Maja is a great chance to help in a non-profit organization. It’s always possible to create projects on your own or helping Uudo at the office. In summer time a lot of help is needed at all the planned festivals.
I was born in Ingolstadt (a little city with 120.000 inhabitants. Although it’s funny because it’s 3 times bigger than Pärnu ;) is located between Munich and Nuremberg. In this city (where Audi producing and developing its cars) I went to the kindergarten and to school. After my final exam I went for studying to Halle, a town in the middle of Germany and it is located close to Leipzig and 1.5 hours far from Berlin. At first I tried to study Economics and Geography. But I changed the second subject very quickly to media & communication. And that’s my favorite subject what I want to enlarge in my master degree. In 2014 I finished my bachelor degree and decided to take a break between this and the master degree in October 2015. And that’s the reason why I chose the EVS program to go abroad.
I think it’s the best decision I made because it’s the easiest way to do something useful without paying a lot of money for it. There are a lot of different projects who wants to have money from you in case of your volunteer stay. That doesn’t make sense to me. The EU program gives you enough money to live in the country where you absolve your Voluntary Service. Also the host and sending organization get money. With this they can offer you all the opportunities you need while staying and working there. Thanks to this money the national agency of every country will organize different trainings where Volunteers come together and talk to each other. It’s a good chance to find new friends and have an active exchange.
My tasks in Nooruse Maja will be to give some German lessons and to help Uudo with all the paperwork in the office. Sometimes help is also needed with the applications for new EU projects where Nooruse Maja want to take part or be a partner for other organizations.
The best thing to be in Pärnu: My parents and my sister (she is 21 years old and study rescue engineering in cologne) will visit me. Also a few friends of mine plan to come to Pärnu. I’m so happy about that because I can travel around with them and discover Pärnu, Pärnumaa and whole Estonia. There's still a lot to be done.
