We hosted Salome as a European Solidarity Corps volunteer from June to October 2026 in our association, where she supported our international projects for youth and helped in farm works.
The project was coordinated by Giosef Torino – Marti Gianello Guida A.P.S., with the support of Jugendwerk der AWO Württemberg e.V., and funded by the European Commission through the European Solidarity Corps programme and the Italian Agency for Youth.
This is her experience!
My name is Salomé, I am from Germany, and I volunteered through the European Solidarity Corps at Associazione Kora, on an educational farm in Umbria, the heart of Italy. As many young graduates right now, I fell into a phase of unemployment after my studies. First, I struggled to find a job in my profession, then, I struggled to find a job in any other profession and non-profession, and finally, I could not even get an internship to collect all the “missing experience” that was the reason I did not get the jobs. After having done 3 internships, finishing my master’s with excellence and already working as a research assistant, after 70 application and 6 months, I still found myself in a big city without a job.
A short note about me: I like doing things. I feel at my worst when I don’t have anything to do, and I enjoy my holidays and breaks the most when I know I have something to look forward to afterwards.
At this stage in my life, I decided to do some short-term voluntary farm work. I thought that the physical work might temporarily erase my self-doubts about my lack of experience and competence, and allow me to think and breathe more freely. This turned out to be exactly what I needed: I shovelled compost alone outside for two weeks. Meals started to taste good again, and I was so exhausted every night that I fell into bed and immediately slept, rather than getting caught up in my thoughts. I enjoyed pushing my physical boundaries and not having to think about anything other than my next move with the tools. At the end of the month, I realized that it was the simple things that had improved my mood and calmed my nerves: eating well and regularly, being outside and in touch with nature, living among other humans, and having a task that made me get up every morning. So I decided to stay for a long-term volunteering. My responsibilities changed slightly, and I took on more office work and helped with the training courses organised by my association. I spent time with the groups, helped with logistics, wrote reports, did evaluations, and continued to work outside from time to time. I lived on the countryside together with people who were very different than me, we shared spaces, meals, and stories. On the way – without noticing – they became my friends. I improved my language skills, befriended the cats and sheep on the farm, volunteered down in the village, traveled to small towns in Italy and at some point only had Italian songs in my Spotify playlist. I had time to read loads of books, did some cooking and gardening and started to be creative again. I perfectionated preparing pizza dough, built some big wooden structures, harvested lavender and slowly, slowly, I started creating a bond to the people and the place.
And in the meantime I learned so many things without even trying.
Here is a list: I learned that I like working outside with my hands, I learned that I really enjoy to work in an international environment and that my social energy is limited. I enjoy staying in rural areas and I am capable to live together with a lot of people. I learned that I like being useful as much as being useless, that I need to eat good food, sleep, activity and being outside and that at some point, it can also be too much reflecting.
My biggest lesson remains the same: it’s the simple things that bring me happiness in life. We may already know the solutions, but we need to master the implementation. I think this is also the most important discovery I will take away from this experience.
