My volunteer experience In a French consulate.

Before I take you through my volunteer experience in a French consulate, there is a little bit of context. When I first moved to the US, in Seattle, as I was on a specific visa, I had to wait for my work permit to work. This is typical with most visa and the delay vary depending on different factors. Some people can have it in a month and some like me in 5 months. I was on an L2 visa I’ve heard that the type of visa can impact the delay but I’m not sure which ones and why. The only thing is the average time is 3 months and you can’t get information about it until you actually receive it.

More about arriving in the US from Europe in my article: https://elvinechloe.com/make-the-best-move-from-europe-to-the-us/

It is frustrating as in the meantime, you can’t work in the country. So, when I arrived in Seattle, I started by looking for a volunteer activity to keep me busy. After some research, I found out about the French consular agency and send them an email to offer to volunteer. I just send an email through their website with my CV and an explanation of my current situation. I then got an answer in less than 24 hours. They invited me to come over for a chat a few days later to see what was possible.

In Seattle, the consular agency used to be in the same office as the French chamber of commerce. They don’t have a lot of employees and they regularly need interns or volunteers to help them.

There was only one employee for the consular agency and three for the chamber of commerce, 1 intern and 3 volunteers. When I went there, we had a chat about their activities and their current needs. As it’s a volunteer thing, of course, I was able to decide on my timeline. I choose to dedicate 2.5 days of my week to it by getting there.

There were other volunteers on different schedules, most of them only for a few hours per week or month. I was helping with different things, such as making appointments with people to provide their passports. Helping people regarding nationality questions, traveling queries, anything involving being French in the US. I also helped the French chamber of commerce with the organization of events.

I’ve learned a lot about the administration process of being French in the US. I’ve met a lot of French people and even made good friends. And more importantly, I genuinely gave my time to help other people when I had the time to do so.

It’s been a great experience and it helps me go through the time of being unemployed and not knowing what to do with myself. It brought me a routine and a place to go and be involved with other people. I would really advise this type of experience. Even If you do have a job if you can dedicate a few hours of your week it can be very helpful. This type of place doesn’t have so much funding and get going mostly with the help of a volunteer. You can find out about this type of structure on the website of the embassy for France: https://franceintheus.org/

There are other similiar great organisation to volunteer one of them is the AllianceFrancaise. They exist everywhere in the US and potentially in the world: https://afusa.org/.

To find out more about volunteer, you can check out my article: https://elvinechloe.com/an-unforgettable-volunteer-program-in-a-vet-clinic/