I found this opportunity by accident, in one of those volunteer opportunity channels you scroll through without expecting much. I sent my CV, got a reply, and our coordinator Lilith scheduled an interview. The whole thing nearly didn't happen — the sending organisation found my email in their spam folder. Pure luck.
Once I got approved, my anxious brain went to work. I read every infopack, checked every social media post and watched every reel INPRO had ever published, convinced that something this good had to be exaggerated. Free accommodation, pocket money, good insurance, and a year working in an international team. It all turned out to be exactly as described. Shortly after arriving I moved into a flat in the heart of the city, in a historical building on the top floor, with big windows and a smart layout. I loved it from the first moment.
The first week was about finding common ground with a team from Greece, Hungary, Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Armenia. Harder than it sounds? Not really. We clicked almost immediately and have worked well together ever since. There was training for everything, though I struggled at first with the basics of non-formal education. It is genuinely different from anything school prepares you for. Our coordinator explained the difference between VET and PDA more than ten times with remarkable patience. It sounds complicated the first time. Dig a little deeper and it starts to make sense quickly.
The months that followed were full. Days flew past and suddenly it was December. Each week brought new groups, school visits, Open Cafe and Monday Stories. As a team we handled it well. VET groups — usually school students from different professional backgrounds — came in regularly, and for them we ran English workshops, team building activities and quick thinking exercises. I also conducted several weeks of Professional Development Activities for other volunteers, which became one of my favourite parts of the job. The discussions about Bloom's taxonomy or levels of youth participation were genuinely engaging, and participants learned practical things from each other along the way. School visits were a constant too, mostly local schools but occasionally trips to other cities where we spent several days as visiting guests. Students and teachers were always grateful, and those visits showed me how warm and welcoming people in this region can be.
On top of all of this, I was completing online university studies for the first half of the year. I managed, though my sleep schedule occasionally suffered. The point is: the working schedule is light and flexible enough to leave room for other things. Free days and national holidays gave me time to spend my winter break in Germany and the Netherlands. Having an airport in your city makes everything easier.
The second half of the year felt different. I had grown comfortable in my roles as facilitator, educator and office worker, and started putting energy into social media work — creating stories in Canva, editing videos, working on reels. I also had mandatory trainings in Toruń and Warsaw, both of which were excellent for meeting new people and exploring new cities. I'm still in touch with people from those sessions. Beyond the formal training, I did a lot of independent research. Working in education means reading constantly, and I learned just as much from the other volunteers — how to handle stress, how to edit a reel, how to manage a group — as from any course.
The final months were productive and sociable. Group work had become almost automatic; we all knew each other's rhythms and working styles. The last days were spent on job searching, CV writing, reel filming and flat cleaning — the unglamorous but necessary end to any good chapter.
If anyone asks whether it's worth applying: yes, without hesitation. It's a year where you can live with a degree of freedom while building experience that actually matters. You get to discover your strengths, work on your weaknesses and share a flat with people who become far more than colleagues. I'd recommend it to anyone.