Venue: Vienna, Austria Date: 06.07– 27.07.2019
Organizer: Grenzenlos – interkultureller Austausch
Participants/Countries involved: The 14 international participants from Armenia, France, Greece, Italy, Russia, Belarus, Greece, Spain, and Vietnam. They were accompanied by an international leadership team from Italy, Honduras, and Austria.
“I would advise everyone to have this experience because it’s really wonderful, you can learn about yourself and make a lot of friends from all the world.”
“At first I was very scared to communicate with people with disabilities. I had many fears. But the leaders and the group were perfect, they supported a lot and now ‘I feel more confident and more experienced”
“Practice my English, some technical skills in gardening and painting and learn to work with people with disabilities.”
Aims and Objectives were:
- To support solidarity among young Europeans through volunteering in a diverse group of volunteers;
- To support the development of Social and Civic competences;
- To support multilingualism and language learning among the volunteers and gardeners;
- To support active and sustainable life-style and independent living;To promote entrepreneurship and active participation among young volunteers;
- To create a meaningful non-formal learning space where volunteers can learn in an intercultural environment;
- To promote inclusion and develop inclusion competencies through volunteering in a mixed ability team, involving volunteers with and without disabilities as well as volunteers coming from disadvantaged backgrounds;
- To promote sustainable living and awareness on urban nature through volunteering with the local gardeners and get work practice in gardening and renovation;
- To make volunteering and the ESK program visible as the volunteers work in a bigger group in a public park which is used regularly for leisure activities by the local communities.
The voluntary team ÄKTSCHN IN PARK was an activity where 17 international and local and 2 volunteered to support the work in the Augarten Garden for 3 weeks in summer 2019.
The group worked on the facilities in Augarten, a very famous park in Vienna. The work was for example, painting the walls that protects the garden, cleaning and taking care of the green areas in the Augarten.
The volunteers and the leaders were staying all together in the scout’s facilities where they cooked and cleaned together in smaller groups. One of the aims of the activity was to share tasks and responsibilities but also to define the rules and make clear who is responsible for what.
The volunteers prepared their lunch and dinner together with the support of the leaders of the project and they ate in the accommodation or at the project place.
The working hours of the project were about 30 hours per week. All the weekends were free and during them, most of the group visited other cities like Salzburg or Bratislava.
As we hosted some volunteers on wheelchairs, the group got the opportunity to learn how to handle the wheelchairs, how to support the person, and more importantly, when to support them.
At the end of the project the gardeners hosted a big barbeque in the Augarten were also Grenzenlos members were invited to join.
If you would like to take part of a project like this one, please check our website: https://www.volunteering.at/freiwilligendienste/workcamps/ or send us an email: camphosting@grenzenlos.or.at or camps@grenzenlos.or.at