My internship at Visioneers e.V.

On May 3rd, the time had finally come - my three-month voluntary internship at Visioneers e.V. in the area of youth work and international voluntary services began. So much in advance: The time has flown by so fast and now you are actually reading my final report on my experience. I can hardly believe it and would love to come back to the office next week as usual and gather more enriching experiences with Visioneers and my colleagues.

But let's start at the beginning: In May, I was primarily involved in the "Mobile Jugend-Lern-Hilfe.Jetzt" project. I gave private lessons in residential groups, helping the children and young people with their homework and accompanying their learning progress. That wasn't always easy, because they didn't trust me at first and often had other things on their minds than schoolwork. And yet, over the course of a few weeks, the children and young people grew close to me, I was able to get to know their everyday lives and their living environment, and so it was all the more fun to work with them. The fact that this work fulfilled me so much was mainly due to the gratitude that was returned and that motivated me a lot. That's exactly why I would love to go back to the residential groups after the summer vacations and continue this work.

In the meantime, however, I have not been bored at all. Again and again, young people came to our office whom we helped to find an internship or apprenticeship and who were also very grateful for the support.

Furthermore, I have prepared workshops for students of a welcome class of the Sophie-Scholl-Schule within the framework of the project "Unser Pallaskiez" (Our Pallaskiez). The aim of the project is to promote joint commitment, solidarity and skills among young people with and without a migration background in the Pallaskiez, which is very close to my heart. The workshops dealt with the current regulations for the containment of the corona virus, the topic of cultural diversity and one's own personality. Especially since I already liked to develop workshops before my internship, this task was a great pleasure for me.

I have also been working on a sustainable office concept for Visioneers, which you can read about in an earlier blog article. Sustainability is very close to my heart, which is why I found it very positive that Visioneers has been working sustainably for a long time and is continuing to work on itself at the same time. Also my own awareness of sustainability has improved the task and so we all took something valuable from it.

Just as exciting as it started, it continued! My highlight was definitely the two-week Berlin Summer Vacation School, which included German lessons in the morning and leisure activities in the afternoon, such as playing volleyball, making short films and visiting museums. Already the organization was an exciting and responsible task, which I took on mainly together with my co-intern Judith. But of course the implementation was especially fun, after all we were able to work directly with the young people and observe their development. It was really nice to see how they gradually came out of their shells, improved their German skills and grew together as a group - and became real short film experts!

For me, the personal feedback was also very fulfilling, for example that one participant finally understood how to argue convincingly through my explanation, which made me extremely happy as an alumna of "Jugend debattiert". In the end, the vacation school with all its "magic moments" went by way too fast!

However, the end of vacation school does not mean the end of the internship, and that's a good thing! After all, I still wanted to experience a seminar for the volunteers from Costa Rica. This came true a few days before my last day of work: I was allowed to organize my own seminar day for the volunteers about the political spectrum and right-wing extremism in Germany - a very valuable experience that showed me once again how to develop vivid and informative workshops and implement them in a way that all participants gain something from it.

Of course, there were many other exciting tasks. The fact that I enjoyed my internship at Visioneers so much is also due to the fact that I was always confronted with something new and very diverse. This allowed me to get to know the most diverse areas of work at Visioneers and at the same time to expand my flexibility and spontaneity. I was particularly pleased, for example, that I was able to participate in the design of the new website or that I gained insight into many different planned projects through my role as a proofreader of applications. In addition, I developed a strategy for money marketing, i.e. the application of non-profit recognized organizations for the allocation of money penalties with judges and public prosecutors. I found this task very interesting because I will be starting law school in September and would like to become a judge myself in the future. In summary, I can say that my individual interests were taken into account in the allocation of tasks and that I was able to get the most out of my internship. I also found it very positive that I was trusted and that we grew together so well as a team. It is all the more difficult for me to say goodbye now, because I will miss my colleagues and the work at Visioneers very much. But I will definitely come to visit you, so see you next time!