Voluntary service in Germany: internship at Haus der Jugend

Due to the Corona pandemic, our volunteers had to be patient for a while. The voluntary service already started in Germany. Marit did an internship at the “Haus der Jugend” in Hannover. After waiting for the departure, it finally starts!

Circus for children and youth

During my internship at the “Haus der Jugend Hannover” I got an insight into the work with children and young people.  

My focus was the children and youth circus Salto, which has been an important part for over 15 years. It is an extracurricular and cultural educational offer for children and young people between 8 and 25 years. The circus offers many different disciplines and various forms of training. The goal is to strengthen community and cohesion among children and young people through joint sports and performances. Circus life requires social skills, for dealing with each other, as well as ambition and self-confidence to stand in front of many people in the ring to present his skills. My main tasks were to train and supervise different groups or ensembles in the circus and to offer support with all kinds of problems. It was especially exciting for me to observe how quickly children can get excited about the sport and push themselves to their limits to achieve their own goals.

The anticipation is great

My personal highlight was witnessing the progress of the children and young people. Especially with one group, which was a class of a special school with a focus on emotional and social development, the progress and also the enthusiasm of the children and thus also the growing discipline of the children was impressive. 

All in all, I can say that I enjoyed the internship very much and was able to learn and experience a lot of new things, especially with regard to pedagogy, team-building measures and also tolerance experiences, which I will certainly also be able to apply during my voluntary service with the circus “ZIPZAP” in Cape Town

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