02.06.2020

Virtual final seminar of the south-north volunteers

The COVID 19 pandemic and the measures associated with it have changed a number of plans in recent months. The course of the 2019/2020 south-north volunteer service was also overrun by the corona development. Although the volunteers were almost at the end of their voluntary service, the last, mostly most emotional and very important final seminar was still to come. Here everyone would have had the chance to meet again, to say goodbye to each other and to look back together on their voluntary service.

Unfortunately, everything went very quickly in March and decisions had to be made very quickly. First, the final seminar had to be cancelled due to the danger of infection. Shortly afterwards it became clear that air traffic would soon be suspended and it would be difficult for the volunteers to return to their families. Within a short time, flights were organized so that almost all volunteers could return to their families.

After their return, the volunteers were and are in very different situations. Some started working in the health sector shortly after their arrival, another group of volunteers is currently spending a lot of time at home. Two volunteers could not yet travel to their families due to the lockdown and are currently living with host families or family members. One volunteer is still in Germany, as he/she was not able to leave the country due to the lockdown.

Despite the different situations, it was very important that a final seminar was held. As the volunteers are in different time zones with different internet connections and have different daily routines, we could not offer a seminar that takes place every day for a whole week. Therefore we organized different zoom meetings between April and the end of May, where we worked on different topics.

Now we did not only discuss the topics that are on the agenda of the "normal" final seminars, because the current situation had of course a big influence on what the volunteers were occupied with. This meant that we exchanged a lot of information about the current situation. But there were not only zoom meetings, the volunteers also did various group tasks together via messenger services. In the meetings the focus was on the exchange between the volunteers and the mutual "stabilisation" and empowerment. In addition to COVID-19, topics such as "Culture shock - returning with obstacles and how to deal with them" and the thematic block "Future" were also dealt with.

A virtual farewell marked the end of our online final seminar and although we were very far away from each other, a farewell mood arose. We looked back on the year of outreach, on the beautiful moments, the joint seminars and the friendships that had been made and so, despite the very spontaneous departure, the year could be kept in good memory and concluded.

Even if we would have wished for the end of the volunteer year 2019/2020 to be different, the situation showed us that online platforms offer a possibility to stay in contact and exchange after the volunteer year. We plan to continue to draw on this experience in different situations in the future to offer former volunteers the chance to stay in contact with friends after their voluntary service in the VEM.

Julia Waczynski (Lena Salewski and Julia Waczynski are the responsible officers during the parental leave of Lisa Bergmann for the South-North Volunteer Programme of UEM)

A word of greeting from El Pacific Binagha Miyisa from eastern Congo

El Pacific Binagha Miyisa was deployed in his shortened voluntary service year in the Wuppertal UEM Mission House. He has a special message to UEM.

"Hello, I am El Pacific, South-North volunteer of the 2019-2020 class, my stay was shortened and like the other volunteers I flew back without saying goodbye to acquaintances. I and my family were not sick, we are all healthy. Since my flight back from Germany, I have been staying in Kigali, Rwanda, together with my father. I spend my days reading books, designing my projects and preparing my exchange of experiences with the youth of my community. I personally take moments to read the Bible, meditate and pray. The situation is improving here. This June I will participate in an international seminar organized by the Praxis Academy of the USA. Despite the fact that we did not say goodbye, we had time to be together with other volunteers in an online seminar about Zoom. It was an important moment and we learned a lot about what we need to do to prepare our future. My thanks go to UEM, the responsible officers and all the volunteers for this wonderful moment! 

Best wishes from Kigali,

El Pacific Binagha Miyisa"