¡Hola!
My name is Arturo, and I am an ESC Volunteer as a Communications Assistant!
After the exciting, kitchen-bonding April with the RAI training, I felt like we had integrated into the team very well, I had essentially been put in charge of the visual identity for the project. This work carried over to the month of May, which was full of bigger tasks that were new to me but I enjoyed a lot!
During the month of May, we carried out a lot of different tasks. One of the ones that I really enjoyed was when I picked RAI again and created the visual agenda and events page. It was very satisfying being handed creative freedom to come up with a visual identity for the project, and alongside feedback from the team, I was proud of what I had come up with for this project. That same energy carried into working on the agenda for the DARE project, a training that (almost) the whole team will be heading off to to deliver throughout the first week of June. Almost, because Chiara and I will be at the ESC on-arrival training, which I’m super excited about! Mauro had created a super pretty logo for the DARE project, and as he has been busy in Spain working on another project, I took over creating the agenda for this project, picking up on the visual identity he was working on, and I really like how it turned out!
During this month I also worked on the SWELL project website to present at the European Parliament’s European Mental Health Week event. I had done some web development before, but never in the way that we do at QUEST, which I believe to be essential to know for any Communications role. Elena was an incredible guide showing me everything I had to know to take on this task. Through Elena, I learned a lot of very practical, transferable skills working on the SWELL project site, and it reminded me that the best learning happens when someone trusts you enough to just let you try. With (a lot of) help from Elena, I was very happy with the result and how much I learnt through this big task!
Now, about how life in Brussels has been for me, I had heard about the housing situation here, but actually living it, the searching, facebook messages, the viewings, the waiting… was a whole experience. After almost two months of house searching, getting my room finally sorted felt SO relieving! We all celebrated at the office when I came in with the good news! I have just moved into my new room, and was also blessed by Sunny days (yes, they exist here!), non-stop plans, new people, favourite spots starting to form,so the city started to feel less like a place I was staying in and more like a place I was actually living; and I’ve been enjoying it a lot!
Speaking of which, Chiara and I are heading off to the ESC On-Arrival training in a couple of days! I am very excited about it, so read Chiara’s entry for June to see how it went! :’)
– Arturo