Mi Aventura SVE en Granada: Meriem Kilani

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jueves, 5 de abril de 2018

Granada's Activism

Hello Hello, I was waiting to wrte this blog because what I am going to talk about is a topic that interests me a lot; Activism.

Well for someone like me coming from a country like Tunisia, seeing the activism life in Granada is a fascinating thing.

These past weeks have been nothing but GREAT, I got the chance to see how things function in another country. For example in my country if you hear the word protest or demonstration or HUELGA ! Then it means Chaos, police arrests, jail and a lot of violence.

A Regular Protest in Tunisia

On the 8^th of March 2018 more than 30 thousand people attended the protest of the Huelga Feminista that was organized on the International Women Day.

The streets were flooded with people supporting the Huelga. I never been in such a strike or demonstration. It was an amazing new experience for me, I met there with Sara and my mentor Asun and their friends, it was very challenging to find them, we were sending pictures of umbrellas to try to find each other’s locations lol

A lot of NGO’s where present and sooo many people from all sort of ages aiming to praise the amazing role of women in the society and to point the discrimination that women still face in our nowadays life whether at home or work. It was simply a HISTORICAL day all over Spain not only in Granada and I am so glad to be part of such event.

That made me want to find out more about LGBT activist life in Granada because honestly in my country it was IMPOSSIBLE for me to get involved because I could go to jail for 3 years.

So I looked for some NGO’s and I contacted Granada Visible and many other NGO’s, luckily I met an amazing person; Elena, she added me to their WhatsApp group and also invited me to their meeting which gathered all kind of LGBT Ngo’s in Granada and that is where I made contact with someone from Amnesty International and that also invited me to their meeting where I met with amazing people too.

For me being in those meetings was a very important thing because for the first time in life I was in the same room with people who are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans… And most importantly to feel safe and scared of getting arrested. I don’t know how to describe this but I felt such a relief.

I am so happy that I will attend my first Gay Pride in Granada and to be involved in the planning procedures with the local NGO's.

domingo, 7 de enero de 2018

Hocas Pocas Magical Granada

merifat2 11:25 0 Comments

Holaaa,

So so, today I want to share about how I feel about this beautiful and magical breath taking city; GRANADA !!!

I can’t be luckier to be doing my EVS with such an amazing NGO surrounded by awesome people, If I came to Granada for just tourism I wouldn’t have discovered its inner charm and beauty.

Evs is a great opportunity to integrate with the local community and discover the country heritage, its habits and customs.

I got to visit amazing places which makes me feel so lucky.

Thanks to our hosting NGO I got the chance to go to such amazing places and events in Granada, like the Villages Feria, the horses Feria, Saint Miguel celebration and MAGIC SHOWS !!!

I actually got inspired by going to 3 different magic shows with our coordinator Carmen, I decided I want to make a magic show in Ciudad de Los Ninos for the children. So I have been learning to make tricks with cards, and I love it, been improving my skills day by day. Who knows, maybe I will make an appearance in the next Hocas Pocas Magic Festival haha

We participated in a Training Course in el Padul which was a great experience as we met with a lot of youth workers and learnt more about writing projects. We also wistnessed several demonstrations in Granada about Catalonia, Refugees or Gender Equality… It was good to be there and see how things happen in this country because in my country we don’t get to see such well organized things.

Some of our on arrival training friends came to spend some days with us in Granada, so I gave them a tour and I was feeling soooo proud that I was doing my evs in such charming city. It was good to be gathered with other volunteers we met in Canfranc, and exchange about our EVS experience.

I went to some events planned by another NGO, Granada Acoge where we have Spanish lesson. One was to celebrate the NGO birthday and another for Immigrants and refugees. It was good to see so many people from different backgrounds and origins gathered in one place under the charm of Granada.

Granada Acoge 30 Anniversary

Assesoria in Espacio Joven

TC in El Padul

Granada Acoge 30 Anniversary

But one of the activities I love here is the one I have on Saturday in Ciudad de los Ninos helping to give food to people in need. It feels very satisfying and good. So thanks to everyone that I have met here and for being such an incredible team :)

sábado, 6 de enero de 2018

Canfranc On Arrival Training

merifat2 16:32 0 Comments

Hey J

In this blog I wanted to share my awesome experience during the on arrival training that we had in Canfranc (Huesca) from the 13^th til 18^th of November.

Honestly at first I was not so positive about it, I was wondering how it will be like and if if the other volunteers will be cool.

We were supposed to catch an early bus to Malaga train station and from there a train to our meeting point in Zaragosa. But believe it or not we had a very bad incident with the Taxi service, the woman on the radio taxi didn’t want to send us a taxi no matter how we begged, eventually she was hanging up on us whenever we give the address. We ended up calling our coordinator Carmen and she took us by car to Malaga to catch the Train before it leaves, if it wasn’t for her we wouldn’t make it on time. So I feel really grateful as she is always there for us even when we screw up.

And to add more misfortune, I bought a coat a day earlier as they told me it will be cold in Canfranc to just wear a jacket, BUT the woman that was working there forget to take off the security tag in the coat and she just disabled the alarm, I only noticed it when I was leaving the house early morning.

So when we got to Zaragosa I had to walk for 6.9km til I found a shop that accepted to help me and to remove it, imagine the embarrassment of looking as if I stole the coat lol Luckily I kept the tickets with me.

On the way back I lost my way of course, walked til I got tired then I took the right bus BUT in the wrong direction so I ended up being more far. So I walked a lot until I found my way.

Then at 17h we met at the train station with all the other volunteers, it was funny as we were trying to find each other and tried to get to know each other but as the group grew more and more, it became hard to get to know everyone, we were 26 volunteer !

We then left to Canfranc with one of our trainers. It was a very long and tiring day so everyone was basically sleeping in the bus. On our way the road was so dark, no lights at all, it was kind of creepy so we were not so excited about where we were heading especially that it seemed that we were in the middle of nowhere.

We arrived late at night, we took off the bus and it was sooo windy and sooo cold, freezing cold, in an old street, struggling to get into the hostel we were staying to find out that there are 3 rooms prepared for us. One small room for the 4 male volunteers and 2 big rooms for the other 20 volunteers, so we were 10 volunteers in one room, and only one shower and toilet lol we were all fed up and frustrated, everyone was grumpy and not in the mood for talking, we ate our dinner and went to sleep.

At night the heaters were going crazy, and going off and we only had one blanket so we had a terrible night of no sleep especially that we weren’t comfortable with being with many strangers in one room.

The next morning we got up and we started to socialize about our terrible night lol that was a good ice breaker haha then we started our training and we really had awesome trainers who helped us a lot during the energizers and activities to know each other.

We saw the beauty of Canfranc in the day, it was breath taking, we made awesome friends and we started to bond while learning about EVS.

11km away from France's borders

We got to visit Canfranc International Train station, it was sooo beautiful, we had a very good tour by one of the locals who informed us about its history in a very interactive way.

After few days we no longer wanted to leave that place even if there were no shops or nothing, but we had something more precious, the beauty of nature and awesome company. What more can we ask for J We also got to visit Jaca, another beautiful city and on our way back we had few hours in Zaragosa waiting for the train so we spent them in the city with our new friends who were living there.

The on arrival training was one of the greatest experience I ever had, especially that I didn’t get the chance to have it in my previous short term EVS. So I feel very grateful and lucky for meeting such great people and for all the information I received from all the trainers and also during the language course we had there.

martes, 21 de noviembre de 2017

My First Days in Granada

merifat2 3:48 0 Comments

Holaaa :)

This is my first blog so I should start by telling you a bit about myself.
So my name is Meriem, I am 27 years old and I'm from Tunisia.

I met Carmen in Tunisia about 7 years ago and I told her in September 2016 that I want to go for EVS. So we started brainstorming and she welcome the idea. "Las Ninas Del Tul" applied for an EVS project for two people that is why I was able to go on EVS with my best friend Cheima.

We left from Tunisia on the 24th of October and we arrived to Madrid in the evening. Then we took a late ALSA bus to Granada and we arrived around 7 am on the 25th. Carmen came to pick us up from the bus station and she showed us a bit around Granada where we are going to live and took us for an early breakfast.

In the plane

In Madrid Airport

In the Bus to Granada

I remember the first question we were asking was "When is the sun gonna come up??" haha it's funny because in my country the sun is so strong from very early morning but in Granada it was a bit late.

We went home and arranged our luggage in our new home then again for lunch Nadia from our hosting NGO "Las Ninas Del Tul" and Nadia's little daughter Alya" came to pick us up for lunch where we were joined by Camen, Didi (volunteer from Bulgaria) & Luca (volunteer from Hungary),

And since we didn't want to rest and wanted to make the best of our first day in Granada, we later on went with Nadia to a tourism office to grab some maps and info about Granada, she helped us buy some groceries and showed a good place for drinking coffee then we went to Espacio Joven where Didi and Luca were and which is the place where we receive and inform the youth who comes to inquire about EVS.

in Espacio Joven

We also had breakfast in our lovely garden as the weather was very hot and sunny.

Nadia prepared for us maps to explore the city and it was really fun. We fell in love with the charm of Granada.

We also run into the girls (Didi & Luca) by chance while exploring Granada.

martes, 12 de enero de 2016

Acogiendo EVS en Granada.

Anónimo 0:00 0 Comments

" Los viajes son en la juventud una parte de educación y, en la vejez, una parte de experiencia."

Sir Francis Bacon

Bienvenidos al punto de encuentro para compartir experiencias SVE de voluntarios cuyo hogar será Granada durante una temporada.

Basándome en mi experiencia anterior, y lo caótico que puede ser "comenzar un nuevo proyecto" en las redes sociales, decidí tomar algo de tiempo para crear un lugar donde expresar lo que cada uno de vosotros vais experimentando durante vuestra estancia en Granada, con el fin de motivar a futuros voluntarios y difundir cada uno de vuestros proyectos.

Os animo a que toméis esta oportunidad como una forma sencilla de salvaguardar vuestras experiencias y que sea una plataforma de visibilidad del programa Erasmus + y más específicamente, del SVE.

Os saluda: Nadia.

"Viajar es como flirtear con la vida. Es como decir, -Me quedaría y te querría, pero me tengo que ir: esta es mi estación"

Lisa St. Aubin de Teran

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