Thursday, April 19, 2012

The English Volunteering Project in Stockholm..

Hello late evenings and .... female companions!  How I have missed thee!

It's been a while since I've ventured out late by myself, so, it was nice when I met up with Althea, a lovely lovely girl I met from my first meetup just last week.

Yesterday was a lovely day..  Waking up noon-ish (I know, I really have to start sleeping and waking up like a normal person!), and meeting up with a bunch of ladies at around 4pm-ish (It's good to see so many ladies in the same boat as me!) 

A little bit about this fortnightly meetup coffee drinking group.  It's being run by Claire Thomas who is trying to set up a project called "The English Volunteering Project".  We meet at 4pm every alternate Wednesdays, at different coffee shops around town.  Just a bunch of ladies, hanging out, talking about life in a foreign country altogether.  There were a mix of Australians, Europeans, Americans, Asian etc..  In short, all expats.  All here because of our husbands/partners.  It's quite interesting some of the stories you hear, but it's also quite frustrating when some just wouldn't shut up about how unfair some things are . e.g.  Not able to get their Personal Number after only being there for 3 weeks... *sigh*  To be fair, even though I've quite enjoyed the group, I left with a slight headache from some of the whingings... How many  'It's not fair!'  'It's so frustrating!' do I have to listen to within that 2 hours. >_<  I'm a bit of a whinger myself, but some just blew me out of the water!  but at least we all speak English!! =))

Anyhow, I digress..  

Having so much freetime in hand, I've tried to occupy it whenever possible.  Lazing around, shopping (window shopping for me mostly as it can get too costly in this city) and basically watching TV does bore you out after a while and let's not forget the cooking experiments I have indulged in, with S being my guinea pig.. Thankfully he's still alive... or is he???? ;p.  I've even meddled with my creative side, trying to make hair accessories, but sitting at home with just yourself for company during the day, sometimes the creative juice do not flow at all.  I need people around me, I need to be inspired...

So, I decided to look around to see if there's any volunteering I can maybe help with.  At least, to be surrounded by people, to be able to converse, either English or to learn a bit of Swedish..  One of the website is:  Volontärbyrån which connects volunteers and non profit organisation with each other.

Except for one page which is in English, giving you information about Claire's project, everything else is in Swedish.  Unless you have automated translation on your PC/laptop, you would not have any idea what all the gibberish is all about, which can lead to utmost frustration in your part..

Anyhow, what  Claire is trying to do is offer English speakers a chance to volunteer their time, without having to be able to speak fluently in Swedish.  The project's goal is to develop an English section in Volontarbyran's website and find volunteering opportunities that can be done in English.

In order to get the project up and running,  they will need some sort of funding.  Details could be found here and they would appreciate your help.  Even a little of something would make a HUGE difference.


Do you want to know more about the project?
Visit their Facebookpage: www.facebook.com/englishvolunteering



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