My Volunteering Experience at the EAC
Through my volunteering experience in EAC, the strongest feeling I had was a sense of “connection”. Whether it was connecting with a family through editing their children’s childhood photos and having a glimpse into their memories, or with someone who was travelling in the 1970s, whose letter I am translating, or with the lovely people working or volunteering in EAC during lunch time, I built connections that I believe will always be valuable.
I moved to the Netherlands three years ago from Istanbul, Turkey and have been facing similar worries and feelings with most expats. The homesickness that hits hard in waves when you do not know what to eat or when you have great news to share; the not being able to understand what you are getting at the supermarket; the fear of getting sick and not knowing what to do… For me, one of the most intimidating things was interacting with people, especially in a more professional setting. What if they ask me something and I cannot find the proper sentence? What if I make a mistake? What if I get lost on the way? These were the thoughts I had on the train when I was arriving at my initial interview with the EAC. However, their warmth, even from the first minute, made them all go away.
As I started coming to the archive every week, I enjoyed it more and more. Throughout the day, I was learning about different places and communities from all over the world, varying from clothmakers in Indonesia during the 1980s to a primary school's performances in the 1960s. I was always someone who loved going through old documents, pictures, and belongings. Being able to do that while helping preserve people’s stories from being lost in time was extremely valuable to me and connected me with people and their experiences from all around the world, even if it was simply through a picture. However, my favourite part of the day was lunchtime, where we all got together in the archive to eat and talk about our weeks, the world, ourselves and so on. As this was my first time engaging with an environment outside of my school in the Netherlands, I had many worries, but everyone in the archive was so welcoming to me and interested in me that I felt like I belonged there, in a city where it was my first time being in, in a country where I moved to not long ago and in which I had not actually left my shell.
Not only can this archive be very beneficial for many different fields and research, but what it means to many expat families gave me the feeling of doing something valuable. I, the daughter of a migrant, can understand the meaning and importance of preserving these histories on a deeper level. While doing all this, the relationships I built here made this experience unforgettable. All of these connections inspired me in a way that I will always be grateful for the experience.