VIE+W | Latin dances and culinary arts goes well together

Hi my name is Selcen Taşlıyan, I was born in Coventry city of England and I lived in England until the age of 3 but I don't remember much because I was just a baby. I lived my whole life in Turkey.

I want to talk a little bit about myself. I am 23 years old and graduated from gastronomy and culinary arts. I love to see different cities and countries, I have visited a lot of the city in Turkey, I've been in Portugal for a student exchange project and in the UK for a language course to learn better English.

I think I can say that "there were more Turkish people in England than English people" because there in Cambridge were many language courses and most of the students were Turkish. The Portuguese people were as hospitable as the Turkish people. I enjoy participating in volunteering projects because I am happy to help people and animals.

When I was a student, I established a volunteer community at my own university and worked as a project coordinator and general coordinator in some local communities, I developed many projects. The name of one of these communities was Alanya Toplum Gönüllüleri Vakfı (TOG) it means Alanya Community Volunteers Foundation. The projects I've been in are; Sen İste Yeter, Sign Language Workshop, Runatolia, key training.

Apart from these, I am interested in Latin dances like salsa and bachata. I learned how to play the piano, I work in areas that will improve myself and I receive training from certificate programs. I’m always trying to improve myself, especially in the kitchen because I like to cook, try different dishes and taste them.

My reason for applying for an ESC project with ICDET was to expand my experience in volunteering in other countries. Here I want to improve myself and contribute to the people around me. I'm here to learn more about volunteering, learn about people's cultures and meet new people and maybe write my own volunteer project in the future.

I hope I can make a good impression on everyone here. With the hope of collecting good memories.

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Selcen Taşlıyan, volunteer@ICDET

LIFE+ | Escaping From Reality

I am Onur Camlica. I am from Turkey. I was born in Turkey and then I was raised in a small village in Bulgaria. So I also have Bulgarian Citizenship. I am a senior Electrical and Electronics Engineering student in Edirne/Turkey.

I had various experiences during my university education. One and the most extreme experience was Paragliding in Erzincan/Turkey. I had to sacrifice my final exams in 3rd grade for this training. Because both 2 things were at the same date. I chose the paragliding and it cost one year extension of my school. But I do not regret it at all. If I have to do it again I would make the same choice again.

I called my experiences various because they are different from each other. For example I am an engineering student yet I took a license for paragliding, I worked in a jewelry store, I worked in a little company which is making electrical installation as an apprentice also I worked on a farm as a peach picker and seller.

I was visiting Bulgaria very often but still I hadn't been in Sofia before this experience. I believe that there are more than one truths in life. So I am after these truths. The way that I chose to look these truths is involving and achieving more in experiences like already I have been in. Because we can not notice the truths without living life deeper and deeper and also without seeing different lives, cultures and people. First and most important piece that I expect from this volunteering project is improving something. No matter “something” in me or in the association. I want to see a result when it’s done and I want to show that result to the future me. Because I am really jealous about future me. Because he will get more and more experiences although I don't know this right now. Also I know that no matter how much I compete with him, I cannot beat him but I like this challenge which goes to infinity. Life is not like what we see. Life consists of moments that we live. The moments that we learn, travel, explore, discover and the moments that we love, sad, angry…

The first month or sometimes the first year in the new job can be fun and educational. New way or vehicles to go to the work and new colleagues that you meet, new environment and new things to involve and explore but what about after 1st year?

Still can you improve yourself or the environment already you’ve been in? Can you make new differences? When I ask those questions to myself I couldn't respond to them as “Yes!”. Because of the situation of coronavirus or some economical issues. I looked to myself in the mirror and I asked: “What am I doing here and now?” The answer was simple: “NOTHING!”.

That meant I didn't live… What was the living? Living was the road we walked while looking for the truths. So i decided to walk again, in another country and in another city with different people. After this decision I asked myself again: “What would I do in there?”. The answer was simple again. I had lot’s of experiences and stories to show or tell. If I make a good impression over a person’s life, it would be enough for me.

But I realize when I arrived here, everybody had experiences and stories to show and tell. Everybody’s stories were in different fields, what they lived and their lives were different… With this awareness I decided to collaborate our lives and experiences to create some new awareness to make a good impression over the people who are in impossibility or insufficiency. Also this collaboration process makes more story for all of us. I am really looking forward to seeing the results of this volunteering program.

We have lots of plans, we have huge hopes to change people's life in a good way. We gave the start for change starting from ourselves. We changed our laziness that the coronavirus situation brings us. Every single morning we push ourselves to wake up early.

Every morning before breakfast we are walking around the lake. Every morning we make healthy breakfast together. If we want to impress someone, we have to affect each other in the first place. If we want to focus on our tasks we have to focus our physical and mentally health at the first palace.

"A healthy mind in a healthy body."

(M. Kemal Ataturk)

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Onur Camlica, volunteer@ICDET

PEOPLE+ | Welcome on VOLUNTEERING@ICDET, Munup!

Hi, My name is Münüp Duygulu. I'm 22 years old. I am from Turkey, Kayseri and i`m in Sofia, Bulgaria for my first international expirience as ESC Volunteer in ICDET Bulgaria. I graduated from Erciyes College in 2017. I was not very successful in high school. Frankly, I was a mischievous student. After preparing for the university exam for 1 year, I got into Ufuk University, Faculty of Law in 2018. I moved to Ankara when the university started. Ankara is the capital city of Turkey.

I was in English preparatory class in the first year of university. I am now a third year law student. I am working to improve myself all the time - I have been doing research to take part in a volunteering project since my childhood. After starting university, I planned to reactivate my research, but I could not go anywhere, because we were in the coronavirus pandemic.

By the way, I also like travelling very much. Whenever I have free time, I travel through cities of Turkey but this has been my first time abroad. I discovered ICDET and learned that I could participate in such a project during the coronavirus. I applied with great enthusiasm. ICDET is my first volunteer project host. I have been in Sofia for about 2 weeks. Sofia is a city with history. I visited historical places in Sofia and will continue to do so.

ICDET offers us the opportunity to travel while doing a volunteering project too. I learned to ski in Erciyes Mountain in Kayseri when I was a little kid. I am a professional level skier now. Bulgaria is famous for its ski resorts, so I will go skiing to Bansko and Vitosha mountain in Sofia. Everyone at ICDET takes good care of us. They give us the opportunity to improve ourselves. We develop projects to improve ourselves, the ICDET and the European Union. I hope in the future I can still continue to improve myself in the best positive way!

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Münüp Duygulu, volunteer@ICDET