"It gave us a real life networking example an energy to move on in my life actively" - Zaher Akkad

Since I believe in volunteering as a great opportunity to meet new people, develop communication skills and build mutually beneficial relationships, I participated in the Alumni Hungary Network to work as a volunteer with them. This volunteering work was great opportunity to expand my relationships within Hungary.

As a volunteer, I was invited to attend volunteer training in Budapest, next to the other volunteers. Despite my tight time at the end of the semester and needing to travel to reach Budapest, I was enthusiastic to go in order to meet the others in person. I have not been in volunteer training before; therefore, I put many prospectives about my day there. My hopes did not go down; it was an amazing day for me with distinguish people.  

It was a fully international day. Various volunteers from different countries attended the training. It was a good time to meet students and alumni in Hungary who are enthusiastic to share their experiences and advice. I can say that every one of them is an open-minded, easy going person. One of the volunteers was a friend of mine from China, I was glad to meet her again. Another one is from my country, it was my first time to meet him; it is funny that we are neighbors in the same city but we are meeting in Budapest.

The training was enjoyable. It made us go through the hours just like minutes. There were two main things I have enjoyed the most during the training. Firstly, networking and its impact on our life. Even I had already known what networking means, I learnt a lot about networking in the training. It made me understand how networking is not limited to one place; we should always work on it anytime anywhere. Secondly, applying what we were learning immediately on us as participants. That made the training interesting and gave us a real life-networking example, and also encouraged us to interact with each other. 

This training was useful and helpful to my future work, either in career or in volunteering. I understood a productive concept, which I should always apply. Being in a hardworking team like that, gives me the energy to move on in my life actively and working on achieving my goals. 

I went back to my city Miskolc, with beautiful memories, new friends and full of energy. Hoping to have another nice opportunity like this again. 

The summary was written by Zaher Akkad, international alumni volunteer.