Intercultural dialogue

From Workcamp To World Tour

The project took place in:

Belgium

Long term volunteering

Written by Evgeniy Evchenko from Russia

February 2014

“In a month I’m going to travel around the world, but let’s start from the beginning…

Exactly one year ago, I crossed the border of the Russian Federation the first time, I went to Belgium. I flew there as a volunteer with the short-term EVS project. After a long preparation and struggle with fears and doubts, I faced this experience, which totally changed my life.

I spent a month in Europe, surrounded by 15 guys and girls from different corners of our planet. Everyone told me many interesting things about their countries and invited me to visit them. It inspired me a lot to see and to learn more about different countries.

After my coming back to Russia, I began to think about the possibility to live in a foreign country for 1 year with the EVS programme. But the most difficult thing was the choice of the country. I really didn’t know where I wanted to go. Thinking about it led me to the idea that first of all I want to see a lot of countries in Europe and then live longer there, where I like more. Then I began to think about the North and South America and a bit later (why not?) about mysterious Asia. So… I started to prepare a big world tour, got a manual and heavy but more paid job to make the dream comes true. Two of my friends joined to my idea and we created the route:

01/09/ 2014 – 01/09/2015: Sri Lanka, Vietnam, India, Cambodia, Nepal, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Japan, Korea, China, Taiwan, Indonesia.

01/09/ 2015 – 01/06/ 2016: United Arab Emirates, Israel, Turkey, Egypt, Greece, Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Canada, United States.

Summer 2016: UEFA Cup in France and then travelling around Europe.

During the trip, we plan to earn needed money by making websites and doing graphic design. Also we are going to shoot short videos about our tour with recommendations for future travelers and a lot of interesting things.

That’s how volunteering inspired me to change my life!

Go for it! Yes, yes, YOU, go for it!”

Written by SFERA Volunteer, Evgeniy Evchenko from Russia (2014)

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