Five months in Krakow – volunteering, community, and personal development

Short presentation of me 

I was 20 years old when I was on a project in Krakow for 5 months in 2020. I found out about the possibility to travel and be a volunteer with ESC when I was in high school. But I never thought it would ever be possible for me. Then the opportunity arose after high school before I continued to study at university. After volunteering and returning home I began at university college and now work as a nurse. 

Why did I choose to become a volunteer /why ESC? 

Since i was a teenager I´ve always had an interest in volunteer work. I also wanted to experience the world and learn more about other cultures. I researched on the internet and found ESC when I was in high school. ESC seemed like a fantastic configuration of what I was looking for: to travel, volunteering, meet other people and learn about cultures, it did not require a big savings account to be able to participate, the projects' length was more often months and not weeks that they lasted. So when the stars aligned I seized the opportunity and applied to volunteer at an ESC project. 

How did you live, what did you work with, what did you do in your spare time? 

Before being able to go abroad to the project it required some preparation and coordination between my Danish sending organisation, the Polish host organisation and the Polish school where the actual project was. During my entire experience I felt in safe hands, among other things because of the support from all the organisations. 

I lived in an apartment in the city of Krakow with other ESC volunteers. I was volunteering at a village school outside of Krakow where I took the bus together with the other project volunteers. In the school I was in the special needs classes in the morning and in the afternoon I was in the school's after-school care. The days varied in everything from being together and being creative with the children, being in the lessons, celebrating carnival and valentine’s day, excursion with the special needs classes from the school, workshops and so much more. My experience was that the more you engage and pitch in, the more you are able to have an influence on what you get from the project as a volunteer. 

We were several volunteers in Krakow on several different projects. It meant I met other young people from other countries and we had a community with each other. When we had free time and on the weekends we visited and hung out and explored Krakow and other parts of the country together. The community with the other volunteers was just as big part of my experiences and learning across cultures. Covid of course had an influence on my experience as an ESC volunteer and what was possible as the world shut down and reopened. Cultures meet, experiences, surprises, fun and challenges. Throughout my time in Poland I had many different experiences with culture and meeting different people. The language was a thing that both gave some challenges as well as fun experiences. I have several memories about how we had to be creative in how we communicated with each other, adults and children alike. During the project I learned a lot about other cultures, people, solidarity and society. Where I had several nice and fun conversations with both adults and children. These conversations opened up for interesting perspectives about a lot of different topics. 

What did the project give you? 

I have become more self-reliant and developed as a person. I have learned a lot about different cultures and met a lot of different people. All of that together has challenged and opened up for perspectives that I did not have before. With my own eyes I have seen how small things can have a big impact. To finish a project and return home required a bit of adjustment for me but also led to some fun moments for me and others. An example would be that I could not remember a word in Danish but I had no problem saying it in English or even perhaps in Polish. Covid of course affected my experiences and the project and that was also a challenge throughout the months and after my return to Denmark. Even several years later I still think about my time as a ESC volunteer, the people I met and the experiences I had, and what they taught me as a person.

Updated on utorak, 17/02/2026