Tom Hughes

ESC volunteer at Europa Direkt Fyrbodal 2021

Hello everyone. My name is Thomas Hughes and I am a 21 year old British and French dual-national International Communications student currently on a gap year between a Bachelor’s degree and a Master’s degree. As a part of this year, in the aim of gaining experience and widening my cultural horizons I will be volunteering here at the Europa Direkt Fyrbodal office in Åmål until the end of August.

European Solidarity Corps

It is in fact a European youth program called the European Solidarity Corps (or ESC) that not only allowed me to be here during a border-shutting pandemic, but also gave hundreds of other 18 to 30 year old volunteers a chance at international mobility in these difficult times.

My opportunity here in Åmål is to last 6 months, but ESC missions can go from being only as short as a couple of weeks to being as long as a whole year. As well as having the possibility of choosing between short and long-term projects, ESC missions are rich in terms of the diversity of content they offer. After having registered as a participant on the website that makes all of this possible, the European Youth Portal, each aspiring volunteer can search through a variety of social, educational, environmental and generally solidarity-promoting missions. Said missions go all the way from working on an eco-farm, to working with refugees, through working in a Europe Direct office like me for example.

As well as the opportunities themselves, the ESC presents its participants with a number of advantages once they have found their project. As well as paying for the volunteer’s travel costs and accommodation, the “coordinating organization” also provides monthly amounts of money for food, but also pocket money as well.