European Solidarity Corps

A warm welcome to our new volunteers! Anna comes from Armenia and has been at the Esslingen Children's Centre since September 2023. She enjoys being active in sports and is looking forward to playing football and basketball with the children from very different countries and cultures, encouraging them and shaping them in a positive way. Her language skills in Armenian, Russian, English and German are a great help for us and our Ukrainian refugee children! Since October Kaan from the Turkey part of the Esslingen team. Kaan grew up in Germany as a child before moving back to Turkey with his family. He also inspires the kids with basketball and football and uses his manual skills in everyday life. Zeynep also comes from the Turkey and has been working at the K19 Children's Centre in Geislingen since October. She studied law and is interested in immigration law. She facilitates communication with the Turkish children who come to the centre. She enjoys travelling, reading and watching films. We are delighted that the three of them are at Agapedia and thank them for the time and love they invest in the children!

We are delighted to welcome two new volunteers to the Esslingen Children's Centre again this year! Sofya comes from Russia and has been with Agapedia since October 2021. She is a teacher of German and English and enriches our team with her experience with children and camps. She enjoys being outdoors and is already looking forward to starting a vegetable project in the garden with the Agapedia Kids. In March 2022 she was finally allowed to Aybegüm from Turkey and completes the team for this year! With her enthusiasm for sport, music, dancing and theatre, she is just right for us at the children's centre.

We thank them for the time and love they invest in the children of Agapedia!

Our new volunteers are here! We warmly welcome Florian Specht, who will be supporting our Esslingen team for a year as a federal volunteer. As a child, he spent every afternoon at the old Esslingen children's centre for many years and knows our „Agapedia family“ very well! Now he can share his former experiences with the new generation of children and is still in top form in the circus disciplines!
Osman from Turkey is actually a mechanical engineer, but has a great pedagogical hand with our kids and is a great contact person, especially for our Turkish children! And last but not least, we are very happy about Mariam from Georgia, who has lived as an orphan in our local children's and youth centre for the last two years. She is very creative and artistically talented and can sew great things! When dealing with the children, she empowers the girls in particular and helps them to have confidence and try out new things!

We have had a new EVS team with us since September 2018! Samira from Norway was at the old Agapedia children's centre in Esslingen almost every day as a child and is therefore still familiar with some of the circus disciplines. We are delighted that she is now back in the Agapedia family as an adult and passing on her knowledge to the children with her cheerful manner. Tamás comes from Hungary and is a gifted pianist. Before he continues his career to become a world-famous film music composer, he is giving us a year to introduce the Agapedia children to the world of music. Yana is from Bulgaria and has lived in assisted living at Agapedia in Sofia for the past 10 years. She has therefore also been part of our family for a long time and we are very grateful to have her here with her enthusiasm for dance, sport and music.

We had three very talented young women with us from October 2017 to August 2018: Inna from Russia has inspired us with her artistic talent in many areas. She performed dance, clowning, acrobatics and many handicraft activities with the children. Shoghik from Armenia was our sunshine! She had a lot of energy and got the kids excited about sports and games. Sophie from America supported us a lot with her organisational skills in the office. She always prepared and organised her sports and English workshops with great care.

We would like to thank the three of them for the time and love they have given to the Agapedia team and, above all, to the children.

Until October 2016, Elena León from Spain, Chiara Trabaldo from Italy and Aslihan Cakir from Turkey will be shaking up the Agapedia world with their creative workshops, innovative ideas and zest for life.