Update – I’m making progress !

The last few working days have been a little bit more chilled out and have given me the time to organise my jumbled head and to work on some documents I had hoped to do.  I also met Salima from the French National Agency last Friday for an update on how I was doing.  She firstly spoke with me and Yves, then I had a separate interview with her and then Yves talked to her separately.  All seemed great and she appeared to be very happy about my project J I may even pop into Paris sometime and go and say hello in the offices (which I now have the address for).



Salima (French National Agency) and I



Other than that, I have been working on 2 different documents for the French volunteers who are either due to leave for projects or are already there.  The first one I have done is a booklet based on the ideas in the Passport Portfolio from “Everything is Possible”.  It is a leaflet that I have designed in order to help the volunteers with preparation before their projects, with information they could use during their project and ways that they can reflect on their project when they finish in order to help them with future life ventures.  This way, they can really benefit from knowing what they have specifically done throughout their experience and how they may have grown as a person.  I have done it in English as I hope to be able to help them with it during the English Workshops… They will be improving their language whilst completing important preparation J (at least that is the plan!)



Yves, the boss, in action at his desk



The second document I have prepared is called “le Guide de la Visibilité”…. Ok so I have cheated a bit - u got me!  Raphaël from “Everything is Possible” did exactly the same in English (Visibility Guide) so I translated it.  How cool is that; the French man prepared the English version and the English (me!) did the French version.  It was designed to give those out on projects an idea of how to keep the sending organisation up-to-date with what they had been up to, through the use of text (such as my blog), photos and videos.  Now that I have finished the version for this organisation (using my photos as examples) I have emailed the 7 or so volunteers that are currently out on long term European Voluntary Service projects and who’s sending organisation is “la Mission Locale de Lille”.  Now I’m hoping to start receiving some emails!!! I’m excited to learn about lots of different projects that are going on, in a way that I try and share mine through this blog.

I’m currently planning how I can effectively run English workshops for beginners in the language… It’s not really something I have thought about before so it will definitely be interesting to do and a challenge I imagine… Though I have had some help from my former French teacher from University J  She’s been lecturing my Dad in beginner French at a summer class at the university too, so he can give me some hints on how he was taught things from scratch (and I will try and apply it in English).

For now, I am going to continue with planning and also final preparation for this afternoon’s English workshop.  I’m going to try out a couple of new techniques this afternoon and hopefully I can get everyone a little more engaged.  That’s all from me for now! A toute à l’heure et prenez soin de vous! (See you later and take care J).

La Place de la Reblique - next to my office and one of the places where I spend my lunch breaks