My name is Bence and I am a voluntary project manager and youth worker of the Hungarian Polgár Foundation for Opportunities. I also consider myself as a youth leader as I am leading an informal group promoting physical activity and healthy living for young people in Budapest. Concerning my educational background I obtained MA degree in International Relations in 2014 and I am currently engaged in PhD studies researching sport-based youth development projects and sport’s utilization in external policies.
With the Olympic Legacy project my dream came true to be involved in the work of a well-known Brazilian NGO, the Gold de Letra Foundation. I was always interested in the Latin-American culture and I was particularly curious about the foundation’s work with young people. I consider helping children, adolescents and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds as the main objective of my academic, professional and voluntary endeavours.

To be honest, I am already in love with the country and its inhabitants. By nature, Brazilians are very welcoming, warm and friendly people and I have received enormous amount of support from them.  Brazilian culture is just a fascinating colourful mixture of costumes and habits from all around the world, I am especially happy that football is the everyday part of life here.  My Spanish and basic Portuguese knowledge helps me a lot in communicating with locals and I believe this is a great advantage.

In the first part of my mobility I was involved in the work of the Gol de Letra Foundation’s main office, based in Sao Paulo. Besides teaching English to young Brazilians I had the opportunity to experience the field work of the NGO in Vila Albertina district. Capitalizing on my previous youth-sport project management experience, I assisted Gold de Letra in the preparatory works of the Olympic Legacy youth exchange. From the first time I was fully inserted in the office work and I was treated like the integral part of the team.

During this month I have developed both as a person and as a professional. Through the engagement in the everyday work at the foundation, I got acquainted with the sport-based methodology of youth work, I learned about the life the local community and the Brazilian way of living. Last but not least, I met wonderful people inside and outside my hosting foundation who have all contributed to this  nice and rewarding experience in Sao Paulo. I strongly believe that European NGO’s can learn a lot from Gol De Letra Foundation as they are experts in the field of using sport as a tool for human development.

Now the time has come to welcome over 30 young people in Rio! It will be amazing!
Bence Garamvölgyi Testimony – Olympic Legacy Project funded by the European Union.