The Excellence Center Traditions

By The Excellence Center In Europe / In Internship in Germany

The Excellence Center has various traditions that volunteers can engage with. From daily breakfasts to field trips to Berlin, there is plenty of room for community building and exploring Germany and the city of Halle.

Every morning, the daily tradition of breakfast occurs at 9:30. During this time, volunteers prepare breakfast together in the kitchen at the center. After the meal is ready, the volunteers and staff sit together at a large table and talk. Volunteers can be found reflecting on lessons, giving advice to each other, and sharing stories that took place in places all over the world.

“Breakfast is really cool since we all get to sit together early in the morning and talk and prepare breakfast together,” said Ali, a volunteer at the center.

Another Excellence Center tradition takes place every Wednesday morning. The center holds football matches in a local park with all of the volunteers. Volunteers split into two teams and play a friendly match as a way to bond with each other and have fun before the day starts.

The next tradition for volunteers and refugees who come to the center is group dinners. Group dinners occur at restaurants such as “Dock’s” or at the center itself. Having dinner all together is a great way for the volunteers to bond, laugh together, and share another meal together after they teach. Special types of dinners also occur, such as the “goodbye dinners”.

“One of my favorite traditions is probably the goodbye dinners. We just eat really good food and say goodbye to the people that are leaving, and we start talking about our favorite memories of them,” said Ali.

The center cooks a large meal for all of the staff and volunteers at the end of the week for someone who is leaving the center. Favorite qualities and advice are shared with the volunteers who are leaving the center that week, as a way to say thank you.

“We organize a gathering where we make traditional food. I love it because I feel like we can travel to countries only by food and I feel like everyone gets to know more about each other,” added Salma, a staff member at The Excellence Center.

Lastly, The Excellence Center often holds field trips and tours on the weekends as a way to further promote cross-cultural exchange for volunteers. For example in July 2022, the volunteers went on a day trip to explore the city and cultures housed in Berlin, which is only a two-hour train ride away. Another field trip was to the city of Neustadt, which holds the highest population of refugees in Halle (around 95% of the population). There, volunteers explored the Arabic shops there and learned more about refugee integration in Halle. Another recent tour in the summer of 2022 was to local shops in Halle, where volunteers got to speak with Syrian shop owners about their businesses and their experience moving into Halle as a refugee.

“My favorite part of the center is being surrounded by people with different backgrounds, people from different nationalities. This has expanded my knowledge more about their culture, habits, and traditions,” said Salma.