Over the past three months, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to live and work in Sofia, Bulgaria, thanks to Asfar’s International traineeship program.
My host organisation was the NGO Know & Can – Сдружение “Знам и Мога” – which is an educational NGO based in Sofia that works in the field of non-formal education and training as well as with European projects in the multiple fields other fields including rights, justice, citizenship and mobility. From the very beginning of this placement, my colleagues were extremely supportive and welcoming, helping me to quickly settle into a new place (which turned out to not be so difficult or take so long due to how amazing this city is).
My friends and colleagues in the office here at Know & Can from the start trusted in my abilities to work on important projects that they had been developing for some time, which I really appreciated as it gave me the opportunity to learn first-hand how the NGO world works from experts who have worked in this industry for many years. I had a number of eye-opening experiences reading projects that were the brainchild of my colleagues here, all of which were extremely innovative and creative, and full of passion for improving the state of education for all across Europe. For example, I was given the opportunity to work on a project which focused on the gamification of learning, which involved working in live action role play teaching methods into classrooms to help enhance the effectiveness of education. I have also been provided with many other opportunities to develop skills such as IT skills whilst creating infographics, formal and non-formal writing and desk research. The work side of this placement has been extremely informative and has certainly shaped how I am viewing what my next steps will be going ahead with my professional life.
Outside of work, I have been lucky enough to live in the wonderful city of Sofia. Initially, the fact that I would have to share everything and there would be little room for privacy or personal space concerned me, however these fears quickly evaporated as I realised that from the start I had a large number of friends made up of travellers and wanderers, long-term renters like myself and the new faces passing through. I had a network with which to build out from and this made exploring the city 10x easier and 10x more exciting. Sofia is full of amazing culture, hidden music and drink venues, wonderful bakeries and beautiful street markets, all taking place under the beautiful backdrop of Vitosha Mountain (reachable by public transport in 40 minutes) that keeps an eye over the city.
Blagodarya ti Sofia! Ciao!
