Isidora Stefanoska

During my one-year visit of USA as an exchange student, I dedicated numerous hours volunteering in different settings, ranging from assisting at the KC Chiefs Football games to working in a thrift store and food shelters. While my initial goal was to contribute and help others, I found that I ended up helping myself as well, as I experienced a deep sense of satisfaction and created new friendships and connections. Naturally, when I returned back home to Skopje I tried to find a way in which I could continue this lifestyle and the American Corner Skopje was the place for me. After a year of volunteering with the Corner, I learned a lot about organizing events and the logistics involved in organizing them.

The lessons learned from volunteering bore fruit when together with my team – Tara, Emilija and Nikolija, we organized a festival this August, which we named “Skopje Creative”. The festival included art forms such as sculpture, poetry, short films, painting, dancing, and singing. To our satisfaction, the festival was very successful with over 150 attendees and I must say that I would have never engaged myself in such a project if I had not started volunteering in the United States and if later on I had not got involved in volunteering with the American Corner in Skopje.

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