Motivation letter for ESC?

Hi! I want to apply for a volunteer from ESC. Can someone please revise my motivation letter? Volunteering will be king of work with children, including organisation language animation and language exchange meetings and so on.

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Dear volunteer coordinator of ***,

I am Margarita, 24 years old and I live in Saint-Petersburg, Russia. In this letter I try to describe myself, my background and motivation to apply for participation as a volunteer in the school and youth center. I found your program in the database of European Youth Portal. When I learned about a possibility to be a volunteer for a whole year from the ESC once in a lifetime, I realized that it is a great opportunity which I should use. Being a part of an important social project and living in a foreign country for a year – it is just an amazing chance for self-determination, for development my social, language and cultural skills. This is a such great opportunity that can't be let go.

I start with introducing myself. In 2019 I completed a bachelor's degree in economics at one of the best universities in my country – National Research University Higher School of Economics. After that I have been working as a project manager in the construction industry. Now I realize that I don’t do that I really want to. I want to do something connected with social activity, humanity, creativity. So I decided to take a break for one year and do something for the soul - volunteering.

I had some relevant experience of interaction with children. Back in school I worked as an animator at children's parties. I created, organized and ran competitions for children and teenagers. After that, I was elected in the youth chamber of the city parliament by my school. During my term (2 years), my commitments included the implementation of a personal project. My personal project was about help children with disabilities. I organized various exhibitions and concerts, which helped to gather money for Christmas gifts to children with disability. Besides that, there was a small experience of working at a school as a teacher. I replaced the literature teacher for 2 weeks. Moreover, I worked in a children's camp. There I acquired quite interesting skills of friend-mentoring. I like working with children, I am delighted with their innocence and non-pattern thinking. I really like that in your organization I can get a chance to develop the skills to work deeply with children.

I have some traits that would be great for volunteering. First of all, I am an active person who was engaged in both creative activities (music, drawing, theater, dancing) and social activities (I was a member of the youth chamber at the city administration, I am a political and ecologic activist). In addition, I like to help people, communicate with them, be part of a team. Because of that I have volunteered in several organizations, but mainly in two: a social one that distributes food, provides shelter and both legal and psychological support; and in the ecological one, which is engaged in the separate collection of waste (there isn’t almost infrastructure for that in Russia). When I help such organizations, I am happy to feel useful and belong to a great deal. Furthermore, I also can mention that I was the project manager somewhere. For example, I and AISEC international organization arranged a forum for future leaders, which was dedicated the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and environmental workshops, I was one of the organizers of city competition for cookers, my job has been a project manager of Smart Home system and different building works. Thus, I have the ability to communicate with people and conduct administrative affairs. It also develops the skills of both work in a team and on my own. Because from one side I have to take into account all opinions, and from the other side I have to do my commitments independently.

In conclusion, I would be happy to be part of your team, get a chance to acquire new skills and have intercultural exchange experience, that makes me expand my worldview. By the way, this is also a huge motivation to participate in your program. German is the birthplace of famous artists and scientists, I want to take closer look at culture, history, Germans, improve language skills, share my country’s culture, traditions and tell that the country is primarily the people who live in it, but not the state and their political decisions.

If you are interested in my candidacy, please, contact me via e-mail. I am looking forward to your reply.