Intro
Hej alle sammen!
Hello everybody! I am Gözde, 22 years old ESC volunteer from Turkey.
I remember the moment when I saw the acceptance mail I got from AFS to my project at KP, I had tears of joy and laughter of excitement! I could not believe I was going back to Copenhagen, since 2018 when I was an exchange student at KP all I ever wanted was to go back and be part of something bigger than myself. During the time of my education, I have always craved an international environment and a need for engagement with other cultures. When I saw my exchange school was looking for an ESC volunteer for their International Office I thought to myself “It must be faith!” even though I am not a huge fan of the concept about faith.
First Steps
I arrived at CPH airport at 10th of August 2020. I was welcomed by an AFS volunteer, dear Nadja.
After some days at quarantine I was finally able to go the office and meet the amazing team later I became part of. I was welcomed with open arms and I felt like I was in good hands. My supervisor Charlotte and my mentor Tilde were my closest team-mates!
My main tasks were creating a social environment for the international students, managing activities, engaging the students through different media platforms, creating needed content and evaluation materials etc. which I enjoyed very much so!
Other student coordinators Frederikke and Frederik were the ones I worked together with during these tasks. They helped me a lot in adapting to work in an office and still being a young person in Denmark. We did many city walk events, museum trips and evaluation surveys together! Here are few pictures from some of our events;
During My Stay
Unfortunately Covid-19 forced us to work from home after spending an amazing first month at the office together with my colleagues. Working from home and adapting the tasks we had to new regulations was not easy at all, I had many personal and professional struggles. Thanks to dear Tilde and Charlotte’s guidance and my dear friend’s company at the dorm I was staying at; I believe I managed to overcome these issues as much as I could. I believe I made great friendships with the people I shared a kitchen with for almost a year. We spent birthdays, holidays, game nights, movie nights ,shared dinners and many more special moments together! All residences of kitchen 3, I love you and I can not wait to meet you again!
Projects
When it comes to the professional side of things, I would like to mention a project I worked on about creating an online course for the new incoming students. The idea was to create a way for students to get the same amount of arrival information in a creative and interesting way. I have worked almost two months with the smallest details on our “Pre-Arrival Kit”, trying to optimize the effectiveness of the course. I have worked closely with Tilde about this project and at the end we had our course for the new semester. Dear Tilde still keeps me updated on how our course is doing since it is very precious to me and I am very glad that it worked out amazingly 🙂
When I was working with the course I realised the mental health support system was neglected when it comes to International students. In order to make some changes we needed to create a connection with the International office and the counselling department as well as a proposition with some proof. Therefore as my solidarity project I worked on a evaluation survey with our previous international students about their well-being and resources during their exchange experience. I got in contact with the guidance department and presented the results to our boss. Through this intervention the first step for creating a mutual approach for international student’s mental well-being was taken. I am extremely proud of these projects and I really hope they will be useful for the better days.
The End : For Now
I would like to say that living in Denmark was a unique experience for me, it gave me an opportunity to get a taste of adulthood and many personal and professional experiences I was curious about. After all, Copenhagen will always have a place in my heart. I can not wait for the next time I hopefully get to have a walk in Nyhavn again. I will leave you with some of my favourite moments from Copenhagen.
ESC Solidarity Projects 