Everything has a start, an evolution and a future; some things never die, like hope, and hope to become better. I want to tell you about the latest experience I had in this rainy day a week ago, it is about life, hope, achievement, inspiration and a success story! We planted the future on the 5-th of December 2021 but how and where, read below: Some experiences cannot be described only with “It was amazing” because there is bigger than amazing, there is wonderful. But before you start to get bored let me start to tell you about the story (so you don´t “hate” me for trying way too much):
So as I said it was 5-th of December we had this day full of activities with young people from almost all over Balkans, and one of the activities, the greatest one was to plant trees at primary school “Jovan Popović”, it is always great to do something for the future, to do a good deed and why not to be remembered for that, of course in the future.
So we started the day really early, first stop was at city center at European Culture 2022 building in front of the Christmas village, to change the number of the remaining days that are left till the opening, on the 5-th there were even 39 days left, but if you pass by the city center take a look at that! Then to the main dish, and the best one, our stop was the school “Jovan Popović”, oh I love that school and its students (at least the ones I met and talked to me with this amazing English, oh I felt so glad , and explained to me the spaces of the school and the infinite prizes, medals and championships they won) but the main event here was planting the trees, we planted TULIP TREES.
The Tulip Tree is perceived one of the most important trees in American history and serves today as representation of liberty and democracy, values we want to share, promote, and inject to the young generations so we can be sure we are planting a prosper, inclusive, hopeful, rightful, and a bright future for everyone who is living and will come into this world, to be sure that the ones that will come after us will have it easier, at least they will have a shade when the sun is to strong! That´s what we do in volunteering we try to create, cure and help for a better tomorrow!
After that we went at OPENS this amazing building full of inspiring people, we had there this big conference about “Volunteering and planting the future”, everyone who helped, who volunteered got a medal with the logo of NvS “Novosadski Volonterski Servis” it was a great closing way before we jumped into the food and party! It is always good and healthy to get some recognition and appreciation for your help, time, ideas, vision or even just your presence. Only the fact of being there nowadays it is an act to be valued, and applauded!
The conference went great, I mean I was a speaker in it (just joking), there was Nikolina as well speaking in behalf of NvS, this amazing local volunteer who shared her experiences and memories, they told me her speech was super cool, I do believe it, she is a wonder! We had Vukašin as well he is the boss, but he is one of the coolest to be around, unless there is something to be fixed, he is great he talked about Opens and how everything is going, he can speak really fast, I was so impressed! And then Vojislav was the last speaker, he deserves to have the last word, he is just the best, but I will say no more so I don´t look like I want to corrupt him!
But you should remain with three headlines from this article, the first one is that volunteering is so useful and might be life changing! Second when people from all over Balkans come together and between them have a common understanding and cooperation good things become reality! And third thing is that we plant the future!
Planting the future it is tough, so try and do everyday a thing having in mind the future, do everyday a thing for the future. Plant the future, if you don´t do it, who will?!
Adrian Zalla
WB6volunteer
