My name is Nikolaj V. Lassen, I’m 22 years old, and I’m from the city Aarhus in Denmark. When I was younger, I went for one year to a boarding school, where we made several trips abroad to get to know other cultures, and ever since that time I’ve wanted to travel and meet new people. The main reason for me being a volunteer is that the ideology of doing something to help others just because you can, really speaks to me. I chose Lithuania because I don’t know so much about this country and I am looking forward to get to know more about the Lithuanian culture. I chose Suduvos gimnazija because I want to become a teacher when I’m finished with my time as a volunteer.
When we came to Lithuania we could go to the gymnasium and meet the teachers and students only for one week, due to Covid restrictions. Since then, we started to look for new and online ways to participate in different activities. It wasn’t that easy because the students were really busy with the school. I had the idea that creating a cinema club with them and watching and discussing movies with them it was a good idea that they might enjoy. We made just a few lessons because, as a said before, they were really busy in the evening too with their homework so they were not joining.In the meanwhile, we found some activities that were really interesting like participating in different online activities during lessons time or meeting with our tutors on Fridays’ evening for a cuisine exchange: we ate Lithuanian, Spanish and Georgian food and learnt from each other in those meetings.
At that point, Christmas was getting closer and we didn’t have any plan to spend our time on that dates. I thought that the best option for me was going back home and see my family and friends as long as the situation in Lithuania was that bad. I went there and I still could participate in the online activities we were having like the meetings related with the Tolerance Day and the Independence Day, where students and volunteers we shared a little bit of our cultures and point of view; those were really nice meetings.
