My name is Tim Schmitt, I am 19 years old and currently volunteering at two schools in Alavus. One of them is an elementary school (alakoulu), and the other one is a secondary school (yläkoulu). At the elementary school, I have English classes where I teach the pupils vocabulary or a little bit of grammar by playing games with them. At yläkoulu, my main purpose is to motivate the students to learn some more English, so I am mostly sitting in classes trying to talk to them so that they get interested in using the language.
“After spending one year abroad I realized that there is a lot more to life than your job, and it’s okay if you don’t have everything figured out.”
Volunteering was always my main plan for a gap year. A lot of people in my environment at home, a town called Ratingen next to Düsseldorf, have spent time abroad, some even in similar volunteering programs. They always told me nice stories and how much fun they had, so I figured I would also like to try it. Of course, there were options like work and travel, but I couldn’t really afford that because I couldn’t work that much during high school. As a volunteer, I received funding from the German government which enabled this opportunity.
Effects of the pandemic on the decision
In June 2020, I graduated from high school, which meant that I had two months of doing nothing until I was able to come to Finland. After this, I was so bored that I was really glad to finally start working again. Another motivation to go volunteering at that specific time was that the universities in Germany would have been online due to the COVID pandemic, so my choices were either sitting in online classes learning some theoretical stuff for the rest of the year, or going abroad and having a volunteering position where I could actually do something practical. That was a clear choice for me.
There have been many challenges in these times, but none of them has made the experience less enjoyable. Even though I’m living in the countryside in Finland, COVID has affected my everyday life. For example, there has been some uncertainty in my workplace, because at any time the numbers of COVID cases could rise, and then the schools would be closed and I wouldn’t have anything to do. Also, when I wanted to meet people in my free time it was very hard to find anything to do, and meeting new people in sports clubs or other public events was impossible. However, I didn’t miss anything at home because Germany was always in lockdown. That made the whole idea of not being able to see my friends while I’m here a lot easier because they couldn’t see each other anyways.
New perspectives on career and life
I’ve always had the feeling that I would like to work in a job that’s social in nature, and the past year has shown me that this feeling was correct. Through my volunteering period, I found reassurance of what kind of work I want to do after my studies.
Besides that, volunteering has given me new insights into life. In Germany, it felt to me that it is very important that you have a perfect life: you finish high school, then go to university and have everything figured out, and then make a lot of money. After spending one year abroad I realized that there is a lot more to life than your job, and it’s okay if you don’t have everything figured out. There is always more than one way to be happy in life and it doesn’t necessarily come from being the best at everything but also from having nice people to share your time with.
Interviews: Emma Niemi ja Mia-Elina Aintila
The article has appeared in MaailmanVaihtoa – Volunteers’ Voices 2/2021, as a part of an article in which also Siiri Sandberg and Paula Rajala share their volunteering experiences.