January 28, 2026
Laurine was a volunteer at LEVEL UP for 9 months with the European Solidarity Corps : learn about her stay in Poland and involvement into our organisation.
SEPTEMBER
This month, having arrived at LEVEL UP in the middle of the month as a European Solidarity Corps volunteer, I was warmly welcomed by the mentors and coordinators. I met Ada, who arrived at the same time as me, as well as Vittorio and Jose. We all got to know each other at the association and in other cosy places.
The week following my arrival, I went to the on-arrival training in Warsaw with Ada, and the training was truly amazing. Both the location and the coordinators were very patient, understanding, and always enthusiastic.
My first week was immersion week. I got to know our mentor a bit more, started Polish lessons, attended an English class organised by Vittorio, completed and presented my country presentation, attended the first International Masters meeting, and helped sort clothes and blankets at a sorting centre for flood victims.
OCTOBER
It was LEVEL UP’s birthday and together with other volunteers, what was needed for this event and celebrated. I’ve worked with Ada on the ESC presentation for foreigners and for schools, as well as presenting my own country. I also worked on a brochure to promote the ESC for the fair at one of the universities in Lodz.
Then, we started to create and prepare ‘English talks’. It will be a regular event consisting of speaking in English on a chosen subject for about two hours with other participants. It will gather people who want to practise English. I was working on the logo, the poster, and the topics we will talk about during each session. I also prepared some examples of conversations and useful vocabulary to help participants follow the lessons more easily.” I also spent some time at the office helping with materials, food and the conference room. I helped with STP project and welcomed and assisted a group of Moldavian and Ukrainian people. I introduced them to the ESC and my country, plus a presentation on Spain made by Jose.
In my free time, I’ve also started to explore the city, a few museums, Piotrkowska street, the zoo, some cafés with my English teacher or other people, and so on… I also started taking part in activities with the ESN association to do various fun activities with other young foreigners like me to meet people and have a bit of fun.
NOVEMBER
I continue to help and to assist Moldavian and Ukrainian people, and I have been in a lot of libraries to distribute posters about LEVEL UP’s events. Also, we had a few different LEVEL UP events about people with disabilities and the “Transparency gala” event. During these events, we were responsible for logistics such as preparing biscuits or cutting some fruit for guests, taking some photos and videos, helping to prepare the conference room before starting the event etc.
With Ada we continued supporting the Polish Red Cross with food boxes for a few days. In my free time, I was continuing to go to ESN activities to keep busy, meet new people and discover new things with them, like visiting Poznan. And with people, I met with ESN, we went to Norway for a few days, from the end of November until the beginning of December.
DECEMBER
I had some logistics tasks: picked up tickets to the Orientarium Zoo with Ada for LEVEL UP, and also some things from a printer shop. There was a volunteer day at the office to talk about everything in the volunteering field. We also celebrated “Christmas Day” at the office between volunteers and colleagues and we ate and played together.
We also welcomed and met two new volunteers with the ESC programme, Marta and Sofia. We started getting to know them and doing a few activities together. We organised a meeting between us to talk about how to make the best promotions for “English talk”.
We continued and finished Polish lessons with Marta this month online. I continued to enjoy my English lessons with Kate online and in stationary in coffee shops. My English has improved, but I need more and I’m waiting for lessons at university thanks to my coordinator and mentor. I came back to France to celebrate Christmas and New Year with my family and a friend and I enjoyed my days off there; I rested a lot.
JANUARY
I came back in Poland for the second part of my volunteering at the beginning of this month. We started with a management and project meeting with one of our coordinators, and the other volunteers attended this meeting with me. It was interesting to discuss another subject. We also rewrote some subjects for the “English talk” with the other volunteers and also promoted it with ESN association to hope more people for english talk, but despite that, nobody came. We also went to the Armenian day in library to find out about Armenian culture and their country.
We also changed a bit our presentation and a new kahoot more simple because they were children this time. We went twice to primary schools with the girls, for almost a whole day, for many sessions with different classesin small, different villages far from Lodz. It was nice and interesting to introduce ourselves and present for the first time in front of children.
We also participated in a fair in the museum to promote our association and English talk during a part of the day with the other volunteers and some other LEVEL UP volunteers.I also attended Sofia’s first online meeting with other employees from LEVEL UP about using AI across different software and creating some very nice things. And about online things, I also attended two different ESC interviews with French people very nice, because our coordinator is looking for two new volunteers. I really liked to find out this part of the activity and listened to each motivation from these volunteers and what they said about their background.
FEBRUARY
I went to different primary schools with the other volunteers, to present only our countries too and also a simpler Kahoot. The children were really nice, like their teachers; they enjoyed this moment with us, and the presentation was like the other schools before. We had our first office shifts to work and help at LCP once a week. We had to go to certain institutions to give some letters about a sponsorship with LEVEL UP through Lodz. We had private meetings with our mentor at LCP to see with us some things about our feelings with the mission.
I went several times to the English group in the Gdansk library, and I would like to try soon in the English group in MeMo library and maybe a feminist English group. In my free time, I celebrated my birthday with a friend from another city in Poland.
MARCH
I went once to school in primary school, I continued to work during office shift in stationary at LCP for working and also helping if it’s necessary. We also welcomed two new ESC volunteers, we made a plan for French day, we also decided the dates to start french classes in LCP as well, and wrote all the ideas for french vlog and started to make some videos. About English Talk, I continued to work on it as a main coordinator, wrote and prepared the subjects for every week. And I also started my English classes at the English language center UL in Lodz.
I’ve been to Torun for my second training the last week of the month, it was very nice, the old city town is very beautiful and charming, the hotel was great as well. All the training and the activities were different but very interesting.
In my free time, I also discovered Cracow, this month was almost full of personal activities and trips and I didn’t get bored.
APRIL
I continued to go to several primary schools with the other volunteers and we finished all English talks every Tuesday this month and it was a success. Even though in the first months there was nobody, it moved to February and we welcomed about 2 and 8 participants every week.
There was a Spanish day organised by Spanish volunteers for a few hours and it was a success. I also organised my own meeting and presentation about how using professional softwares like Photoshop and Illustrator with simple things very useful, it took time to prepare everything for this meeting, it wasn’t easy for me to present because I had to change for each sharing, it was stressful as well for me, despite of that everyone liked what I presented and said it was interesting and it might be useful and it was great.
The best part of this month was this Erasmus+ training organised by LEVEL UP in Turkey, in Antalya for a little bit more than one week at the beginning of April, I really loved this training, the place, the hotel, the training and the people were nice and incredible. I discovered the culture and food a bit as well. I got this opportunity thanks to LEVEL UP, there were different participant groups from different countries and the goal of this training was to learn about what is the transparency on a website, what is important to do, the software and apps, etc…
All participants tried to change, create or improve the website from their NGO with a prototype. On the last day we just visited the city with a guided tour. And in my free time, we visited some parts of the city together, I really enjoyed all of that. I also had to give my feedback to my coordinator after that training, and I started my dissemination about this training on Canva, to present it in LCP in front of everyone, to talk about Erasmus+ in general, and what I did during this training.
MAY
We got started a training with Monika in office, one of the worker in LCP, about preparation of scripts, the first one was how to build a scenario, and create a short scenario, what is important to create it, we had to work and think about our future projects with LEVEL UP, what time, how long for feedback, what we will do for each step of this activity, etc.The second one was the continuity of the first one.
We had the French day organised by us, French volunteers, unfortunately it wasn’t a success like Spanish day. Only few people came. There were the NGO fairs that I helped with. It was a big success, many people from various organisations came and lots of people came to visit this fair.
I also finished preparing everything about my dissemination, the Canva presentation, the form to sign up for participants, the document for me to talk about during the presentation, and I added a short Kahoot about Erasmus+ in general, did the attendance list and decided the date and time.
I went to this volunteer summer camp with LEVEL UP on a half day to spend a good time and see what it is. It was nice. There were some workshops and a great barbecue outside after that. There was also an external control from NA to check if everything is okay with the organisation and our volunteering, finally we didn’t talk with them and we just worked in the office.
I tried and went to a few Japanese lessons in the office to discover a little bit of this language, organised by an old ESC volunteer. In my free time, during the big weekend, I went one day to Wroclaw, also a beautiful city, with ESN I went to Energylandia, the biggest attraction park in Poland, and I also visited Katowice and Auschwitz with some people. It was very interesting to know the Auschwitz’s story and to see it with my own eyes.
JUNE, JULY AND SUMMARY
I have been to primary school for the last time for European day, with so many pupils, to present our countries, and play some games. This kind of presentation is not the best for me, and I prefer normal presentations in classrooms. We also had a festival travelling around the world in primary school, so many stands with food, and different animations for everyone. We held a stand to promote our ESC programme and association, and some games and painting faces for children. There was a training discover EU in LCP during one day to make some workshops for Polish people, we attended and help to prepare everything. Online I attended a meeting about “HER”, women’s history, equality and rights. It was interesting.
And with our mentor in the office, we filled I and another volunteer our Youthpass certificate for this mission, and with all the other volunteers and mentor after we talked about some things about ourselves, and etc…
And not a long time before leaving I made my last project, the art class in LCP for everyone over 18 years old, I organised the stuff like I did for my dissemination, form, posters, promotion. We continued with French classes once a week, by preparing the material one by one and each class went well, we don’t have a lot of students but they are serious and very good. I also went to the last city, Gdansk, a very beautiful city on the seaside and colourful.
My feedback and opinion here, during my mission I had opportunities to experiment and see different tasks, activities and events, and informal education.It was very interesting, and I discovered the culture and the history of Poland, and travelled in differents cities as beautiful as each of them, I would say at the beginning of my mission it was hard. There weren’t enough activities stationary, especially during winter period, but the second part of my volunteering was in spring and summer. It was really great, we got started to have so many activities and events and more tasks, and I got the opportunity from LEVEL UP to go to Erasmus+ in Turkey. I thank you a lot for that, I loved it so much, I can tell I’m satisfied and glad about this experience.
This article was created as part of the Individual Volunteering project – LEVEL UP with volunteering (2023-2-PL01-ESC51-VTJ-000173505) implemented by the European Solidarity Corps program with European Union funds.
Author : Laurine Evrard