I followed my sister from a very young age. Besides her, I have many younger cousins, children of friends of my parents, whose passion fell on my shoulders. From 2020 to 2023, during my studies, I did an internship on a regular basis in a kindergarten with children aged 3-7 years. I worked with children who had problems with speech, problems with society, with nervousness, with aggression, with hyperactivity, with the manifestation of an autospectrum, with mental retardation, with impaired coordination, vision and hearing. I not only know about such children in theory, but in practice I have learned how to find an approach to such children with special needs and how to influence their positive development. In February 2023, I completed a first aid course from the Red Cross Association. From July 2023 to the end of August 2023, I worked at the CoolKids children's camp in the Leningrad region and Krasnodar region, where my responsibilities included not only entertaining children from 7 to 16 years old, but also monitoring their safety, nutrition, sleep, and well-being. Each of the places where I worked with children had its own difficulties, joys, disagreements, positive emotions, and fears. But I successfully dealt with all the difficulties that arose and I think I did my job well. We still keep in touch with the children from the camp, we remember with joyful nostalgia the summer we spent together and promise to meet again. The most important lesson that I learned during my experience with children is that children, despite any disagreements, give unconditional love to those they trust, so the most important thing in communicating with a child of any age is to build a trusting relationship.
I have not participated in this program before. However, my aunt has been telling me about it for quite some time now as her experience. I wasn’t confident in my abilities before, but now, having tested myself in different working conditions, with children of different family values, different characters and simply different ages, I am 99.9999% confident in myself. There is no limit to perfection;) I want to push myself into new conditions in order to once again rise in my professional skills. And what, if not a new country, new acquaintances, a new culture, can help me with this? I hope that I will acquire new skills, knowledge, and a completely unique experience!