August
Friends for ever, 7th of August 2010, Bilteni
The activity gather together kids, teachers, directors from school, parents and volunteers.
The volunteers from Bilteni community (Amine, Levan and Jhon) managed to develop the activity with help of their mentor and other 2 voluntary girls which come from the same country as Levan and Jhon.
During the activity have been presented each country from the volunteers comes from (France, Georgia and Peru), the aim of their voluntary service, documentaries made by the students from Bilteni school which have the theme of the childhood and friendship etc.
At the end have been distributed yellow dots and each participant was asked to mark starting with the lowest and going up to the highest the level of their satisfaction regarding the presentations, regarding the volunteers, regarding the managing of the activity, regarding new activities, etc.
“The children were pleased about the presentation and the parents seemed happy to see that their kids doing something interesting during the summer” (Amine - France).
The aim of the activity was to introduce the volunteers into the community by presenting their selves in their own way (music, videos, presentations, plenary discussion, etc.).
EVS camp for friendship, 2-4th of August 2010
EVS camp is ready for adventures…
All summer camps aim is to reach certain goals at the end of the camp. The whole idea of ‘’EVS camp for friendship’’ was to interchange youngsters from Musetesti and Celei. 10 youngsters, one teacher from Celei and Volunteers from different countries (Georgia, Armenia, France, Argentina, Peru) were motivated to take part in summer camp during 3 days (2-4 August, 2010) which was in collaboration with Asociatia Regionala pentru Dezvoltare Rurala (ARDR).
The summer camp program was full of activities, cooking, music, outdoor games, energizers and sharing of information/experiences. The summer camp was visited by parents of youngsters, other EVS volunteers and staff of ARDR. Campers enjoyed a variety of activities and they stayed in sleeping bags and tents during the camp. The participants had a great time making new friends, learning new skills and experiencing summer camp with EVS volunteers from different countries.
The volunteers (Organizers of the summer camp), who worked permanently with youngsters during 3 days were: Natia Agladze (from Georgia) and Srbuhi Aghababyan (from Armenia). The volunteers who offered youngsters different kind of games/shows during this camp were: Luci (from France), Guadalupe (from Argentina) and Jovana (from peru).
In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the summer camp, we used the method of Reflection Group. It was time when participants expressed their opinions, ideas and wishes about summer camp. After it, campers gave us interesting recommendations which will be useful for our future working with youngsters.
Finally, EVS camp for friendship finished by Diploma Ceremony.
July
Interculinary and intercultural exchange, 29th of July 2010
29 July was the day of „International Cultural and Inter culinary Exchange’’ in Pestisani. The preparation started before, which was really hard and long process for volunteers. Volunteers from different countries (Argentina, Austria, France, Georgia, Turkey, Armenia, Peru) made Posters and Flyers for publicity and spread out different kind of places.
In „International Cultural and Inter culinary Exchange’’ took part local youngsters/adults: from Pestisani and Rovinari. They were dancing modern dances. As for, Singer group from Celei, they presented Romanian traditional songs and dances.
The most interesting part of this activity was Volunteers part. They were singing songs (in their native languages) which was modern and full of energy. At the same time, there was presented traditional food from each country and all visitors had opportunity to taste all food from different countries. During this activity, we had surprise special for Romanian People. We had guest/volunteer from France who was singing Romanian popular songs.
„International Cultural and Inter culinary Exchange’’ was new and interesting for local people, because similar activities are not so often in their routine life. Finally, there was a disco from French Proffessional DJ Nico.
The activity continued about 5 hours and additionally mentor from Tismana and Pestisani were taking part and supported in this activity.
“Moldova are nevoie de noi” – “Moldova needs us”
1st Part:
Moldova is a region in the NW of Romania which was affected by major floods and which left behind homeless people, disoriented and scared children.
Volunteers presented for EVS in Romania were mobilized and triggered a full share in support of victims from Moldova. The action started with a fundraising consisted in clothes, food or other useful products for flooded people implemented in three of the hosting communities: Tismana, Pestisani and Rosia de Amaradia. The campaign was marked by a charity concert supported by skilled volunteers in Tismana and will continue to be promoted during other activities implemented in hosted communities.
The campaign “Moldova needs us” will be implemented during July 2010. At the end all the donations will be sent to Moldova to the people who really need our help, especially to Dorohoi.
CHARITY CONCERT for the flooded people:
The show consisted in karaoke - international songs –, was sustained in the Center of Tismana City – Cultural House - and gathered over 40 volunteers from 16 countries and local people. The surprise of the concert was a French volunteer who sang Romanian songs and who managed to attract a lot of curious local people.
2nd Part
“Come with us to Dorohoi”
To be united means we care.
The region affected where volunteers decided to be closer to the flooded locals was Dorohoi, a small city in the North of Moldova, and its surroundings.
Flooding waters shared suffering and losses caused dozens of villages in Moldova.
With the help of Gorj County Prefecture and Botosani County Prefecture, a group of 13th volunteers and their manager went for 1 week to Dorohoi to be next to the persons that have been affected by water flood. During the week in Dorohoi (15th July – 23rd July) the 13 volunteers worked day by day in the centers where were gather all the donations from all Romania and not only. Alexandre, Natia, Srbuhi, Arman, Lucie, Rodrigo, Levan, Samy, Maxime, Amine, Guadalupe, Aram, Sargis and Andreea helped in unloading, sorting and distribution of the donations to people affected by floods from Dorohoi and villages around it.
The 13 volunteers went in the villages affected and saw the reality – demolished houses, desperate people, no water, no food, no money etc.-. They were very disappointed and marked of the situation, of the faces of the kids and people. After this they decided to reserved one day to go there and to improve the mood of the children.
Without any preparation of the show 3 of the volunteers (Rodrigo, Lucie and Guadalupe) disguise in clowns managed to bring smile of the kids faces and not only. All the audience enjoyed the activity and received well the volunteers.
International Cultural Exchange, 8th of July, Cultural House in Tismana
08 July is the day of „International Cultural Exchange“ in Tismana. Before the cultural exchange, there is a long process of preparation. Volunteers from Tismana made a posters and set these different kind of places.
In ’’International Cultural Exchange’’ will take part participants from different countries, such as: France, Georgia, Armenia, Argentina, Italy, Czech, Norway, Germany, Turkey, Austria, Netherlands, Portugal, Peru, Spain, Sweeden and they will sing their traditional or national songs. Also, we will have Romanian Band who will play and sing traditional Romanian songs.
During this activity, we have surprise special for Romanian People. We will have guest/volunteer from France who will sing Romanian popular song.
June
International Children's Day, 1st of June, C-tin Brancusi Park in Targu Jiu
The volunteers will gather in the Central Park "Constantin Brancusi", in Targu Jiu in order to celebrate International Children's Day in 2010.
The activities include:
- fun balloons and a clown;
- fun animals with balloons;
- face painting for kids;
- asphalt drawing;
- and many more.
May
Interculinary European Bufet „Taste the World“
15 May, 14:30 in Tismana.
There was an activity of International Food Day „Taste the World“ in Tismana. Before the activity, Tismana Volunteers made a posters and set these to the center of Tismana on Thursday 13th of May.
In this activity took part volunteers from different countries – Romania, France, Spain, Estonia, Georgia, Armenia, Italy, Portugal, Austria, Netherlands, Sweden. Visiting volunteers were also from Craiova. In total 11 countries participated and offered their favourite and traditional food cooked by themself. All participants prepared the food in short time and presented their countries’ cuisine.
Local people were amazed about the event. There was many people from Tismana and from other places. They tasted different food from different countries. All people liked this activity and they were satisfied. The event ended at 20:00 a clock. After there was a party.
Romanian hosts and friends from the community brought some international music for backround. President of A.R.D.R was also taking part. Additionally mentor from Tismana and mentor Adelin from Musetesti were taking part.
First monthly evaluation! 6-7th of May, 2010 - Musetesti
On 6th and 7th of May all volunteers took part at their first monthly evaluation gather at Nature Inn Pension in Musetesti. This was also the first opportunity when all 16 volunteers were together. During the 2 days of the evaluation, the volunteers had the opportunity to share with the others valuable information about their activities, their problems or their best moments in host communities.
Day 1:
The evaluation started on 6th in the afternoon once all volunteers arrived and the accommodation has been made. First “activity” was the reimbursement for the local transport for the project. After this, volunteers presented their activities during April in their host communities by using power point presentation, movies etc. and not only, their funny moments and also their not so good moments.
At the end of the presentations has been introduced the voting for volunteer of the month, the project of the month and the team of the month. First day ended with private discussions in between ARDR and EHB Staff and teams from each community. During these discussions volunteers had the opportunity to talk about their problems regarding their community, regarding their relationship as a team and regarding their relationship with the mentors.
Day 2:
The second day of the monthly evaluation started in the morning with the planning for the next month – MAY – made by each team. Volunteers had 1 hour and a half to prepare this plan. When all finished the planning, they presented in plenary their plans and their future activities they want to develop during next month. Due to the fact that most of the volunteers decided to have environment actions, in agreement with all volunteers, MAY has been named “Environment month”.
National Youths Day, 2nd of May, 2010, Targu Jiu
National Youths Day has been celebrated thru sport by tens of youngsters who participated to several contests (cross competition, basket competition, roller competition) organized in Central Park from Targu Jiu. The program has been made by Youths Direction from Gorj County in collaboration with Regional Association for Rural Development where, along the participation at the competition with youths came from host communities, volunteers had a special part reserved for them. Their program consisted in promoting European Voluntary Service among all youngsters present in Central Park to celebrate National Youths Day. The technical support for this action has been facilitated by Regional Association for Rural Development who provided fliers, posters and roll up necessary for a better visibility of the EVS. The volunteers formed small groups and approached all students, youngsters and all persons from the park and giving information about their volunteering in Romania.
Volunteers joined the event and the sport competition enthusiastically and managed to mobilize some students from their host communities to take part at the contests. ARDR has been again next to the volunteers and offered it’s support to their initiative by providing the transport from the host communities to Targu Jiu for the students participated at the competition.
On the other hand, the youngsters manifested joy due to the fact that for them an opportunity to participate at this kind of events is not so often and also because they received an award consisted in t-shirts and diploma. Among the awarded people were counted the volunteers themselves and the student’s teachers.
National Youths Day ended at around 13.00 Targu Jiu with a small show offered by young artists from the Children's Palace.
April
ECO Caravan - 22th of April
Our colleagues from HAI HUI NGO, Targu Jiu launched an invitation for all organizations from Targu Jiu to participate at one of their activity organized to celebrate Earth Day. The activity consisted in greening the Sohodol Valley (a wonderful mountains valley) and our volunteers joined it without hesitation.
The Earth Day has been celebrated by about 80 youngsters from different organization and schools. Our colleagues from “HAI HUI” supported this campaign through to provide the garbage bags and protective gloves. The transport of the garbages bags filled with recyclable materials collected by the young volunteers has been provided by Polaris Holding - local waste collection company – under a partneship made between them and „HAI HUI” NGO.
IMPORTANT NOTE: all volunteers supported by themselves the transport to Sohodol Valley to provee that the civic spirit in terms of environmental protection exist and money can’t do everything. So everybody can do something for the environoment and for it’s protection.
ECO CARAVAN has been made in RESPECT of the environoment !
Capacity Building Programme – 2nd Part
Wednesday, April 7, 2010, began the second part of the capacity Building Programme, which ran for 5 days in the same place as the previous one: Nature Inn Musetesti, Gorj.
The 6 volunteers, Portugal, Estonia, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands who participated in the first part of the program were joined 12 volunteers from non EU countries (Georgia, Armenia, Turkey) and other 2 EU (Spain, France).
During this program volunteers attended training on project management, time management, financial management, intercultural dialogue, conflict management, animation courses.
Most Beautiful Painted Eggs - Exhibition - 5th April 2010
Volunteer Mikk Tammik from Estonia, hosted in Tismana managed to organize a program related to Easter which involved volunteers from 7 communities (Motru, Rosia de Amaradia, Hurezani, Bustuchin, Musetesti, Rovinari and Godinesti). Was launched a call to all volunteers and schools from hosted communities to support this initiative by involving children to paint eggs.
All received the invitation with delight and have mobilized very quickly, eggs being painted in less than 2 days.
In the first day of Easter (5th of April) was organized an exhibition with the most beautiful painted eggs which was gather in the Center of Tismana. Managed to be exposed 85 eggs beautifully painted by kids and volunteers, each School having it own basket which was voted by more than 200 visitors. At the end of the exhibition the basket who had the most votes was the winner, but all participants were rewarded with a diploma.
Volunteers enjoyed the support of all mentors from their communities and the support of the Mayor from Tismana who provided the place where to be located the exhibition.
Volunteer`s initiative was well received by Tismana community and the children from schools, but the most excited were volunteers themselves giving the fact that this was the first Romanian tradition in which they got involved during their volunteering in Romania.
March
Capacity building Programme 1st Part, March, 10-14,2010, Musetesti
On 10th of March, with the arrival of 6 volunteers has been started the “Experiencing Active Citizenship in Rural Areas” Project.
Starting with the first day and till 14th of March the 6 volunteers took part of Capacity Building Programme where all sessions focused on volunteer’s skills development in terms of project management and non formal education methods. Furthermore, technical information regarding accommodation, food, working methods, financial aspects, etc. will be clearly explained.
This Capacity Building Programme was gather in Musetesti at Nature Inn Pension and was based on a number of factors such as socialization, integration, community discovery and detailed presentation of the concept of European voluntary service.
Thus during the five days were held knowledge of volunteer activities, country of origin of the volunteers, their education and training and which are their skills, their expectations and fears in this project.
During first part of this Programme has been presented volunteer’s White Book, were developed detailed discussion regarding it importance and the purpose of this book. Moreover, ARDR and EHN staff presented Romania as a country, life style in Romania and the social context.
The last two days started with Romanian Lessons. The purpose of these lessons was to learn basic concepts such as being able to have a short discussion with people and children from the communities where they will be distributed.
They held many activities to highlight how the volunteers manage to integrate and communicate themselves when they have to be part of one group.
After a session of highly complex and very much information, followed the 'final step': presenting the communities where volunteers will be hosted during the project and necessary information that will adjust their integration.
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