My name is Torben, I come from Germany, and I currently live and work in Rzeszów as a volunteer. One of my main tasks at INPRO is conducting school visits across Rzeszów and the surrounding Subcarpathian region. If you've never heard of these visits before, here's what they actually look like.
The goal is straightforward: support cultural exchange and expand young people's understanding of the world they live in. Globalisation, social media and politics have made our world more connected than ever, which means more opportunities to encounter different cultures and perspectives. And yet stereotypes and prejudices persist. By bringing volunteers from different countries directly into classrooms, we try to replace those with something more personal — real stories, real people, real conversations. In a small but meaningful way, we hope it contributes to a more united Europe.
In practice, the day usually starts early. A team of three volunteers leaves our shared apartment, sometimes on foot if the school is nearby, sometimes by bus. Either way, arriving on time is the priority. Once there, we run several presentations back to back, each lasting a standard class hour. Most focus on our home countries, but we also offer workshops on broader cultural topics and practical skills. Some days we work with the same class across multiple sessions; other days the groups change every lesson. On a full day, each of us can have a packed schedule from the first hour to the last.
The challenges tend to show up in unexpected places. Navigating Polish public transport as three foreigners is an adventure in itself — though so far we have managed to arrive on time every single visit, and we intend to keep that record intact. Inside the classroom, shy students who don't feel confident enough to engage are a regular reality. We handle this with warm-up activities at the start of each session and by weaving questions into the presentation to draw everyone in gradually. And then there's the strain on your voice after six presentations in a row. After just a few school visits, I developed a genuine respect for teachers who do this every single day.
But none of these challenges are reasons to stop. If anything, they make the work more interesting. A day that runs too smoothly tends to be forgettable.
The best part is harder to put into words. It's the moment you notice genuine curiosity in a student's eyes while they're waiting to hear what comes next. It's the awareness that what you're doing actually serves a purpose. That combination — the difficulty and the meaning — is what makes school visits one of the most rewarding parts of volunteering at INPRO.
If you're a teacher who would like us to visit your school, we'd love to hear from you.
Torben