EVS- 2020 EXPERIENCE SO FAR!

The adventures continue on from 2019 with our outreach projects and of course Iman our EVS volunteer from Spain. What have they been up to since the last blog post? Read on to find out!:

‘After Christmas holidays in Spain, I am back in Belfast in order to continue my placement at Moon Base/Black Box. I am now four months into my placement and it was nice to see everybody back and some new faces.

The month of December was full of Christmassy events and the atmosphere was amazing. Some of the events were: Tuesday 3rd of December we went to Fairholme- one of our group members lives there and we played some Christmas songs. On Thursday 12th December we performed a play that we had all written together at the Black Box ‘A Very Tall Snow White And The Seven Average-Sized Humans (no offence)’. We watched some Christmas movies and we also went to the Falls Road Library to sing some Christmas tunes. We all had a fantastic time!

In January Moon Base experienced a few changes: it was our last month at the space in Royal Avenue and we had to move back to the Black Box. During this month we had a wide variety of activities: Our Black Moon walks went to the MAC, Asian Supermarket and Portadown. We were a really great team! At Creating Connections we did our relaxing thematic painting, storytelling and we played some tunes. Thursdays with Moon Music were creative, we did some improvisations and we created a diverse range of rhythms. On Fridays, we did poetry, upcycling instruments/old clothes and singing. We even took part in a film due to the visit of Skyway. It was nice to meet new people and we had a great time.

Our Moon Base Book club first took place on Thursday 9th of January. Although it was quiet, we read the first chapter and we commented on the parts that we most liked. Currently, a Women’s Carers Project is running at the Black Box- in our second session we did a dance and movement session and I really enjoyed it. The project is running for 12 weeks and is funded by Tampon Tax. It is free to attend and open to women carers.

Regarding my life out of work, the first weekend of January (Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th), I went to Glasgow, Scotland. We stayed there for the weekend. We visited the city and the main attractions: the city centre, the Modern Gallery of Art, Glasgow Necropolis, Glasgow Cathedral, some of the Parks, the University, Riverside Museum, Kelvingrove Museum. It is an industrial city full of shops and also historic with very beautiful buildings and parks. To sum up, it is a nice city where we had a great time, and it was also a good way to start our month.

On Sunday 12th January, the weather was really nice and I went to Bangor. We walked through the coast and town visiting the harbour, Ballyholme beach. On Saturday 18th of January, I went to Dublin for the day. Although I have been to Dublin once before it was nice to be back and it is an interesting, busy and touristy city to visit. The weather was with us and we had a great time!

This month I had training about resilience and personal development at Bryson House. Although some of the questions were difficult, I found it really useful, relaxing and thought-provoking to talk about questions of identity.

To finish, the last two months were really busy and I really had a splendid time with our team. ‘

 

We can’t wait to see what the Moon Base crew will bring back to their ‘mothership’ The Black Box and also hear more stories from Iman during her time here!

Find out more and keep up to date with our outreach projects here- https://www.facebook.com/moonbasebelfastbb/