Everything I gained – Nathalie’s story as volunteer in Associazione L’Arca Comunità Il Chicco
We coordinated Nathalie as a European Solidarity Corps volunteer from October 2025 to June 2026 in our partners of Associazione L’Arca Comunità Il Chicco, where she supported their activities in social work with people with disabilities.
The project was funded by the European Commission through the European Solidarity Corps programme and the Italian Agency for Youth.
This is her experience!
Dear fellow volunteers, those who have already finished their projects, those who are currently volunteers and those who look forward to their future voluntary service.
My name is Nathalie and the last nine months I was one of 11 girls that were supporting a l’arche community in Ciampino, Rome. Being born close to Berlin (Germany) I thought the change from one metropolis to another wouldn’t be a huge one, but I was so wrong.
There are plenty of cultural differences that distinguish Germany from Italy: what is considered rude, the way you act towards strangers , the very gluten heavy food, the Latin music, the openness and the many many small talks you have to have, the hostility, the (missing) english skills and countless other things that made Italy such a great and meaningful learning experience for me. While I am most definitely not missing every part I do appreciate everything I got to learn on the road.
My story began when I was 17 years old, after I earned my high school diploma, I realized I did not want to go to Uni immediately. The question that came to mind was: What should I do with my time now?
A European voluntary service!, I thought after I crossed the server of the Eu commission. Generally, I decided to move forward with the idea to volunteer for people with disabilities because it seemed like the most useful way to spend my time and make an impact.
When I arrived to Rome I got a warm welcome by my fellow volunteers and the as we called them “ragazzi”, the twenty core members that were living on the campus of the community, separated in two houses called “Vigna” and “Ulivo”. The main living area an week- and Saturdays, called Day Center, was a work and play area in which workshops were held at every day every weekday + Saturday.
There were also approximately 20 other local ragazzi brought to the day center by their families every morning except Sunday.
You will read my description of a typical day working there here:
At 8 am we started working in the houses and prepare breakfast for the core members, which took place in Vigna in my case. Following this, we prepared the ragazzi for the day ahead in the day center. There it came down to the weekday, either it was music band practice, driving to a shop to pick up plants and have a small breakfast, go to the bar, craft items made out of natural materials, watching a movie or coloring, puzzling and so on. After lunch we went back to the houses where we put the core members to bed and did some laundry, before we ended our shift at 3 pm.
My free time was spent with one or more of my friends that were volunteering with me. We went out to bars and clubs, taking walks around Rome, doing trips, visiting museums, going to the lake close to the summer residence of the pope, working out together, playing bowling, discussing, laughing, talking and also simply living our day to day live with each other on the campus (that we were also living on in a separate house).
This is mostly how I spent my time. I can not even begin to describe everything I gained. So maybe I will share my top 3 with you:
- Gaining live long friends
- Independence
- The certainty: no matter where life takes me, god will make sure I find my place there.
So if you ask me if you should start a voluntary service, I will not withhold you from the fact that a lot of things did go wrong and were rightly criticized by us. But that doesn’t change the fact that I will always remember this time as one of the most precious ones of my life. I am so grateful that I get to take everything with me from the good to the bad. Thank you for listening to my story and I hope you have a great time volunteering!
