Rangsdorf lies 15km south of the Berlin city border. It s a place with around 11,000 inhabitants and lots of natural landscape around the Rangsdorf Lake. In order to make this landscape accessible to the general public, a network of connected footpaths was established in 2005 has been developed little by little ever since. Under the guidance of the local Landschaftspflegevereins (Countryside Trust) and in co-operation with the Berlin-Brandenburg airports, you and your team will help to work further on this network of footpaths. Your main tasks will be maintenance work, repairs and renovations of individual sections of paths, removing garbage and taking care of nearby grassy and meadowland areas. You could also build small items such as sitting areas, signs or birdhouses. Most of the work will be manual. Local foresters, conservation experts and Rangsdorf council workers will help you with complicated tasks. At the end of the camp, there will be a presentation of your efforts to the general public.
Accomodation & food:
You ll be staying in a primary school. There is a barbecue area and volleyball court in the garden. You ll travel the 5km journey between accommodation and work by bike. You ll cook your own meals together.
Location & leisure:
At the edge of Rangsdorf, the typically Brandenburg landscape is full of fields, small and forests. Bicycles are available for the duration of the camp, so you can reach the lake (around 3km away) and the train station (around 4km away) more easily.
The main purpose of this project is to renovate the outdoor area of the information centre of the nature conversation association, called "House Beaver & Co.".Your help will be mostly needed to build a dry wall and an insect wall, maintain an educational trail or fruit trees and other environmental works around Alt Necheln. Please be prepared for any environmental and construction work that will help the environment.
Accomodation & food:
You will live in Brüel, a small city not far away from your working place Alt Necheln. You will be accommodated in the gym next to the school. Everything is in the building: sleeping rooms, a kitchen and a big meeting room. Sleeping bags and roll mats are required.You will go by bike to your working place everyday. So please be prepared for a 20 minutes ride in the morning and in the evening.
Requirements:
In this camp you have to be able to ride a bike and to swim!
You will support the local team building an Indian village with several tepees. This will be the new attraction of the garden. You will first prepare the material, then construct the tepees and other elements and finally set up the village. Other tasks to maintain the magic garden will be added. Please be aware that work can be physically hard in parts and that you will work outside even if it is rainy. In case of longer periods of rain some tasks may be realised in a former circus tent which is part of the magic garden. Please make sure to bring adequate clothes and shoes. On several days you will run activities together with local pupils aged 14-18. So please be also prepared for this exchange and to present your country.
Accomodation & food:
The accommodation is basic in tents in one part of the garden. Tents with camping beds will be provided. A small kitchen (and a campfire) is provided for cooking, there are toilets but only outdoor solar showers (!).
Location & leisure:
Even though the place looks rural and you are doing camping, you will be in the city of Leipzig; the tram stops just in front of the magic garden and you have many opportunities. Leipzig has 560.000 inhabitants and was the centre of the peaceful revolution in Eastern Germany in 1989. Today it is called the "boomtown of the East", university and industry are growing, many artists live here and you can find plenty of clubs, social initiatives…. At the same time Leipzig is surrounded by small lakes where you can swim, most of them leftovers from open-cast coal mining.
International volunteers are invited to improve the grounds of the centre. Tasks are likely to include construction, gardening and renovation works. One of the most important works will be reconstructing the area around the fireplace. Other environmental and construction works outside are planned, like maintaining the grounds, paving works or other tasks. If the weather will be bad, we will need your help to paint the rooms but mostly you will work outside. So please don't forget waterproof clothes!
Accomodation & food:
You will live in a bungalow. Up to 4 volunteers will share a room, bed linen will be provided. The group will have its own common room.
Location & leisure:
Don't worry, in a leisure centre you will find many opportunities to not be bored. There are possibilities to visit interesting places, like the small cities around. You will get information materials and then you can decide what you want to do in your free time. Please be prepared for spending most of the time in the centre.
Taking care of the countryside in nice surroundings and sightseeing in the big city Both of these Elbinsel Nesssand r things can be experienced in this workcamp on the edge of the metropolis that is Hamburg. You ll be working daily in the Fischbeker Heide, a huge conservation area in south-west Hamburg (around 770 hectares). In order to maintain the heathland, regionally foreign plants, mainly pines, must be removed. This Entkusselung serves above all to preserve the area for the particular animal species that live in the heathland i for example of 200 endangered insect species. To keep the work varied, you ll also travel by boat to the Elbe island of Nesssand and clear away rubbish from the conservation area in the river. This is a great opportunity to get to know the river Elbe from a completely new perspective. Besides this, you can try out some manual work by mending ponds and pools in the Fischbeker Heide. The pools create and maintain a habitat for the endangered natterjack toads in the area.
Accomodation & food:
You ll be staying in a cosy, simply furnished seminar house on the grounds of the Fischbek conservation centre. You ll cook your own meals together.
Location & leisure:
The conservation centre at Fischbeker Heide lies 45 minutes (with bus and train) from the centre of Hamburg. In your free time you can go on a trip to the second largest city in Germany, where a myriad of free time opportunities away you. At the weekends, it s worth taking a trip to the beaches by the Nordsee and Ostsee coasts.
Requirements:
You ll need to be fit as the work is physically demanding.
Have you ever wanted to know what kind of things an alp farmer does and how ecological dairy cattle farming works? Its all about maintaining the typical alpine cultural landscape, by retransforming overgrown areas into grazing areas for lots of different species, with typical plants and animals. You will be clearing small bushes in grazing areas and then stacking them in piles or laying them out as shelter for reptiles. Besides this, you will be collecting gravel which will be scattered following avalanches. You will also be trimming bushes and small trees, as well as uprooting them with your hands, in a nearby moor. It is possible that you could help out with maintenance work on the mountain pasture, for example by getting involved with the building of a fence around the mountain pasture, or by helping out with the hay harvest on the organic farm.
Accomodation & food:
You will be staying in an Alpine hut in a valley of the Chiemgau mountains, with kitchen/living room on the ground floor and mattresses on the first floor. There is a toilet, a shower and fresh (cold) water as well as a woodstove for cooking and heating things up. An electricity connection is also available. Bundesstrasse is 50m away (at nights virtually empty). It is also possible to freshen up in a cold mountain stream at the edge of the mountain pasture. You ll cook your own meals together.
Location & leisure:
You have ideal conditions for living among nature and for hiking in the Chiemgau mountains. There is also a cable car going up the nearby Rauschberg mountain (1.645m). The Lodensee lake (6km away) and Ruhpolding (4.5km away) are reachable on foot or by the bus, which runs every hour during the day. In Ruhpolding there are opportunities to go shopping, swimming and there is also the train station there. In the evenings you can sit around a campfire and enjoy the stars. At the weekend you could travel to the Chiemsee lake, Salzburg or Munchen by bus or by train. The alp farmers will help you with buying food for the camp and transporting it back to the mountain pasture.
To build the labyrinth, you will collect suitable stones out of the local river, and then set them up in the right order in the park of Todtmoos: The labyrinth is supposed to have a diameter of twelve meters! Your second task will be the maintenance of local hiking trails. Bushes need to be cut, weed needs to be removed. Eventually, further (similar) tasks might be added – be prepared to lend a helping hand where it is needed!
Accomodation & food:
The group will stay in the local school where you will find a gorgeous kitchen, toilets and plenty of living-space. Showers are available in the local gym which is only 200m away.
Location & leisure:
Todtmoos is a small and cosy spa town in the Black Forest. Due to its location about 820m above sea level, it is a tourist attraction in the winter, offering the possibility to go skiing or attend the annual dog-sled race. In the summer months, this beautiful, mountainous area provides many opportunities to go hiking, biking or to try out the high ropes course. The Feldberg (1493m), the highest German mountain excluding the Alpes, is not far and offers a breath-taking view of the area.
A variety of interesting tasks await you at this famed site. One task will be to work on the ditches to remove vegetation cover and other things which stop the drainage, as well as renewal of a few small ditches. You will document all your tending strategies and record where the highest danger of erosion on the ditches is. The team will also help to raise awareness of this intricate system, for example by using an information board or other materials. Attention: In case the weather is rainy there might be water in the ditches, so please bring sturdy working boots and rubber boots as well.
Accomodation & food:
You will be hosted in the "nature school Stromberg", an environmental educational centre offering activities and trainings for young people. Therefore they have perfect conditions to host groups: beds, several showers, a big kitchen and different rooms to stay. Outside you find different animals (horses, goats…) and places to enjoy the nature. The centre is quite isolated and surrounded by pure nature. The centre was newly build in 2007 and sustainability is very important in the centre, cooking and heating is done with wood and solar energy, electricity is made by a hydroelectric and solar power stations. But please be aware that the centre is 3km from the next village and 6km from Maulbronn. The transfer between project site in Maulbronn and accommodation will be organised but for excursions it might be necessary to walk the 3km to OEtisheim, the nearest village with public transport.
Location & leisure:
Maulbronn is a town in the district of Karlsruhe, in Baden-Wurttemberg. The town is very famous for its monastery, of which you can take a guided tour. The territory of Maulbronn is very rural, providing many hiking or biking trails. Different local initiatives are involved in the project and so for sure there will be opportunities for contacts, shared activities and parties. Maulbronn is conveniently situated near many towns like: Pforzheim, Bruchsal, Ludwigsburg, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe.
Requirements:
Only for volunteers from Italy, France and Catalonia. Please organise your travel in a way that you arrive before 6 p.m. on Aug 14th (or arrive the evening before). Please bring sturdy working boots, rubber boots and indoor slippers.
« The most beautiful thing about volunteering obviously is the people you meet… the helpfulness the understanding…there is always someone who puts a plate of food in front of you if you say you are not hungry and not in the mood, or gives you a pep talk or simply a hug. »
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