Youth Centre Villa Elba in Kokkola Finland hosted an European Solidarity Corps volunteering team project called "Elf Around" during the time 2.11-15.12.2023.
During the project volunteers got to experience Christmas from preparations by making elves and other materials, planning activities for the Elf Path to the actual acting as elves for 800 kindergarten kids and almost 1000 visitors during the Elf Path public event. Besides that, the youngsters contributed to keeping traditions alive by planning and hosting Saint Lucy's Day, which was live streamed by a big local media.
Christmas time is a truly magical period at Youth Centre Villa Elba because they host amazing and enthusiastic youngsters from all over Europe who are bringing their positive attitude and joy.
This year they celebrate 12 years of Elf path, and our 10 volunteers from 9 countries did a fantastic job from planning activities and making spruce elves to turning into actual elves and doing activities with kids and families.
Totally, the elves got to share Christmas spirit with about 1800 visitors!
During the project volunteers had meetings with mentor who helped with recognition of their learning outcomes. Here is some of the learning outcomes:
"I learned how to be resilient and to cope with uncertainty, how to live well and work on the daily life in a different environment and to get out of my confort zone"
" During the project i learned how to be more attentive to the expectations and needs of others and realize if someone needs help. We had evaluations every day, which helped me to learn how to combine different ideas and make a final product that everyone can agree with"
"I learned how to respect the boundaries of each other and how to give someone their personal space when they need it"
"As one of the volunteers to help organizing activities for over 1,500 attendees, I definetily improved teamwork skills, as you need to be in constant communication with others"
The project is Co-funded by European Union.
Villa Elba is doing their best to provide high quality youth work for all young people. We have several ESC team projects on different topics each year. They can be found on their website: https://www.villaelba.fi/en/short-term-volunteering/, as well as long-term individual ESC projects: https://www.villaelba.fi/en/volunteering/
If you have youngsters interested - please send us a message: international@villaelba.fi
