Venue: Vienna, Austria Date: 03.08– 24.08.2019
Organizer: Grenzenlos – Interkultureller Austausch
Participants/Countries involved: The 14 international participants from Austria, Armenia, Serbia, Italy, Russia, Taiwan, China, Russia, Spain, and Ukraine. They were accompanied by an international leadership team from England, Austria, and Greece.
“During the project I’ve gained teamworking and theatrical skills and also I have expanded my international friendzone.”
“Knowing Europe for the first time. Have the opportunity to meet people from a lot of different countries and spend time with them.”
“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.”
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 create a voluntary opportunity where verbal and non-verbal expressions can be used;
- To foster the importance of art as an intercultural learning tool;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 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 LET´S ACT! was an activity where 18 international and local and 2 volunteered in Vienna to for 3 weeks in summer 2019.
The team volunteering was a creative voluntary project focusing on the development of a theatre play, which was written and performed by the participants according to their ideas, experiences, interests etc. They were guided by a theatre educator to create the play that was the product of these 3 weeks of work. The whole project design was related to personal development, self-expression, intercultural learning and mixed ability group experience.
At the end of the project the volunteers had the opportunity to present their “creation” in a final public performance. The play dealt with different topics such as inclusion, exclusion, integration, tolerance, communication and anti-discrimination, peace or solidarity. The name was “Space Invaders Against Borders”.
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.
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