Hello there! I’m Rute and I am from Chaves, a small Portuguese town near the border with Spain – a detail that my Spanish language skills thank for. I’m 21 years old and I moved to Porto (home of the famous wine, Vinho do Porto) three years ago for my Bachelor’s degree in Communication Sciences with a specialization in Journalism.

During my studies, I had the opportunity to live in Romania – where I got the chance to know my way around Europe – for four months and to do two internships, one of which in Lisbon. These experiences were responsible for making me realize that what I want to do is get to know people’s stories and share them, to research, to check facts, to write stories that are meaningful and expose what is going on around us – and I want to do all of that in a multicultural environment where I can learn even more just by knowing other people with different cultures, ways of thinking and experiences. Sounds like VCS, doesn’t it?

I’m in love with learning and discovering new things and since I don’t know in which field I want to continue my studies, this half a year VCS experience in Macedonia seemed a great opportunity to figure that out. Volunteering is not a first to me. I have been involved in volunteer work since I was in high school: from being responsible for a charity store to helping with event organization and taking care of the elderly (personally my favourite so far). But mixing volunteer work with writing articles and designing a magazine in such an international atmosphere is just the dream and I can’t wait to get started!