The Motivation to go abroad and the process of Intercultural Learning

Before you leave your country you should ask yourself why you chose to go abroad. Why do you want to spend some weeks or months of your life in another country? How do you imagine your life and activities there? What would you like to do there? Which are your criteria for choosing the project and the country? Why don't you chose your own or a neighbouring country? What kind of qualifications and capacities do you bring with you that could be relevant for your stay?

It is very important to clarify your underlying motivations and expectations, as you will subconsciously measure the concrete experiences during your stay against them. Some frustrations become more easily understandable if you realise which of your expectations is not met. You must realise that the people you meet also have expectations in your stay, which might not necessarily correspond to yours. Consequently you will have to let go of some ideas you had before you came and new dimensions will open up for you which you could not think of before.

It is also very important to understand that you undoubtedly had some specific images and expectations in your head when you decided to go to an other country. A lot of these ideas might be based on stereotypes. These can be helpful to simplify our understanding of another culture but they can also distort our perception of reality. When you arrive in the country where you are going to do voluntary service, you should be aware of the fact that you are not neutral. Your perception of things is influenced by the image that you have previously received in your own country. You look at life through the cultural 'glasses' of your society. You tend to overvalue those phenomena that you are prepared to see and to neglect those you did not expect. Like you might have ideas, based on stereotypes, about the people you are going to meet, the latter can have the same. Expecting that people will have stereotypes about you and thinking about what they might be about can help ease your stay: you might be able to see misunderstandings based on stereotypes coming up before they escalate.

Exercise: Take your time to write down why you want to do an international voluntary
service abroad, what you expect from your stay, which are your concerns and which capacities you bring with you:

* Motivations
* Expectations
* Concerns
* Capacities