This camp is aimed at young people who enjoy dancing and the arts and want to use these to represent their cultural backgrounds. The camp offers the possibility to get involved with local young people from Gelsenkirchen and also to try out creative expression through dance. At the end of the workcamp, there'll be a performance with the theme "Dance brings the world together". Two public performances are planned: the Dance battle will take place on 26th August and the second performance on 27th August during "Family Day" in the municipal park. During this time, you'll be coached by the artist group Art.62. From the 14th August, you'll be working on your project at the local youth centre, Tossehof, where you'll also meet lots of nice people.
Accomodation & food:
You'll be staying in Haus Grimmberg, which lies in a quiet and natural area right next to the ZOOM theme park. The S-Bahn station is 300m away. Breakfast is included as part of the accommodation. There is also a kitchen available for you to cook the rest of your meals yourselves.
Location & leisure:
You can play table football, billiards, music and many more things in the youth centre. There are group excursions to cultural sights planned, dates and times of which will be organised upon arrival. In Gelsenkirchen there are indoor and outdoor swimming pools, museums and pubs. Because of its central location, Gelsenkirchen is an ideal starting point for numerous day-trips to cities such as Dortmund, Bochum, Cologne and Hamburg, or even to the Netherlands.
Requirements:
You should be interested in other cultures and bringing people from different backgrounds together. Interest in dancing is desired (hard training!).
Age:
16-26
Location:
Gelsenkirchen
Language(s):
English
Airport:
QDU: Dusseldorf Hauptbahnhof (Dusseldorf, Germany)Vegetarian food will be available
Together with the refugees we want to organize common activities, where the women and children are taken into consideration. In addition, our goal is to get in contact with the young members of the local protestant church to raise greater awareness for the refugees and to break the isolation of the refugees. We will prepare contact with students of the university that are willing to take care of the medical issues of the refugees and to pursue the legal issues of the asylum law. We will also get in contact with students of the University who medicate people without legal status. We especially invite volunteers to participate, who are able to speak Turkish, Arabic or Farsi. Besides organizing common activities with the refugees, we plan to construct some furniture made from old palettes together. They can be used outside, and will be nucleus of a meeting point of the inhabitants of the center.
Accomodation & food:
The workcamp will be hosted by a local protestant church which is already involved in working with the refugees. The premises of the church are plentiful and volunteers will have a lot of space for sleeping, cooking, dining, relaxing, and for indoor and outdoor activities.
Location & leisure:
Environment: Giessen, a city populated mostly by students located in the mid-west of Germany. It is easy to reach via Frankfurt airport and Frankfurt Hahn.
Leisure Time:
There are plenty of possibilities for leisure time activities: playing football or canoeing as well as possibilities to visit some other cities. (e.g. Marburg, Frankfurt or Heidelberg).
Requirements:
Please bring sleeping bag, camping mat, work clothes, bathing suit, music, your talents and something specific from your country. After registration, we require a self-declaration concerning the children and youth protection. A motivation letter is needed.
Age:
18-26
Location:
Giessen
Language(s):
English, German
Airport:
FRA: Frankfurt Main (Frankfurt, Germany)Vegetarian food will be available
We will get to know more about the time of fascism and we will discover places of racism and neo-fascism. The responsible pedagogical assistant of the memorial will show us the camp, step-by-step, through different excursions. Moreover we will see documentary movies, discuss about racism/anti-Semitism/fascism in our different countries and those who would like to may work with materials of the library or the archive. There is also the possibility to express yourself trough handicrafts as we also have a well-endowed arts room.
Accomodation & food:
You will sleep in the Youth Centre building, situated on the area of the former concentration camp in rooms for 5 persons.
Location & leisure:
Thueringen, Weimar
Requirements:
For this Workcamp it is necessary to have very good English skills!
Work part: Although the main task will be studies of history, manual work like gardening, maintenance work and cleaning-up of specific areas of the memorial are planned.
Study part:
Besides the manual work the study component will be an important part of our project. Volunteers will learn a lot about the time of National Socialism, the Holocaust and also something about the period after World War II especially the Soviet camp Sachsenhausen until 1950. Guided tours in and around the memorial site Sachsenhausen and excursions to different memorials and places of earlier German history are planned. Volunteers will have the opportunity to work in the exhibitions and in the library of the memorial site. Furthermore there will be several discussions with employees who perform guided tours and are involved in historical research. The international volunteers with their different backgrounds will inform the group about the memories and commemoration in their countries.
Accomodation & food:
You will be accommodated in a youth hostel, 2 km away from the memorial centre. Self-catering
Location & leisure:
Brandenburg, Oranienburg, ca. 33 km to the north of Berlin.
Requirements:
For this project it is necessary to have good or very good English skills!!! German skills are beneficial.Please prepare at home a short presentation about your country, including the history of your home country and the view on German history.A motivation letter - specific to this project- is required.Volunteers should be able to ride a bike, because various shorter and longer bicycle-tours are planned.
You will work on Friedrichsfelde Central Cemetery, where, among many others, survivors of the Spanish Civil War and their families are buried. Your first task is writing down the names which can be read on the gravestones. If they are not readable anymore, you will help to clean them and to paint over the names under professional guidance.Besides the work on the cemetery, you will go on a guided tour through the Cemetery which is not only a cemetery, but also a park. You will meet and talk to descendants of former Brigadists, go on a guided antifascist city walk, have a reading and discussion with Victor Grossman and other persons. We ask you to being open to the topic.
Accomodation & food:
You will live in heated bungalows with up to 6 girls or boys. The bungalows are equipped with a bathroom. You will get bed linen, there is no need to bring a sleeping bag with you.
Location & leisure:
Berlin
Requirements:
A motivation letter - specific to this project - is required.
The project will focus on the diversity of the cultural landscape Upper Middle Rhine Valley and illustrate - both during the hands-on part and the educational part - different aspects of the maintenance of the World Heritage site.The conservation of the area is partly in a bad state because of the fact that a lot of the former vineyards are out of use, that the maintenance both of the dry stone walls and the biotopes is physically demanding and that the knowledge about traditional techniques is disappearing. Under the guidance of experienced masons the volunteers will restore parts of the historical dry stone wall system between the former vineyards.Another important task will be the maintenance of biotopes by cutting long-grass meadows at slopes and in abandoned vineyards with brush cutters. Beside that the traditional way to cut grasses with scythes will be demonstrated. Furthermore, the participants will top trees and cultivate the tree pits at some of the countless meadows with scattered fruit trees which are typical for the region. Finally, during one day the volunteers will carry out maintenance works in a historical landscape garden.During all these hands-on works the volunteers will have the possibility to get to know well different places of the Upper Middle Rhine Valley, to gain practical skills and to learn about biodiversity and the endangered fauna and flora.The study part will give the theoretical background and will also bring the project and the UNESCO World Heritage Volunteers programme in general into a wider public. It will include meetings with the press and a presentation held by the participants about World Heritage sites of their home countries.
Accomodation & food:
Shared rooms with beds, warm shower and toiletsThe cultural centre has a well equipped kitchen. The meals will be prepared together as they are part of the community life, what means that everybody will be responsible for the meal at least once during its stay. So it would be very nice if you could bring typical recipes from home in order to introduce each other to the preparation of food from all over the world.
Location & leisure:
The 65km-stretch of the Middle Rhine Valley, with its castles, historic towns and vineyards, graphically illustrates the long history of human involvement with a dramatic and varied natural landscape. It is intimately associated with history and legends and for centuries has exercised a powerful influence on writers, artists and composers.As a transport route, the Rhine has served as a link between the southern and northern halves of the continent since prehistoric times, enabling trade and cultural exchange, which in turn led to the establishment of settlements. Condensed into a very small area, these subsequently joined up to form chains of villages and small towns. For over 1,000 years the steep valley sides have been terraced for vineyards.The landscape is punctuated by some 40 hill top castles and fortresses erected over a period of around 1,000 years. Abandonment and later the wars of the 17th century left most as picturesque ruins. The later 18th century saw the growth of sensibility towards the beauties of nature, and the often dramatic physical scenery of the Middle Rhine Valley, coupled with the many ruined castles on prominent hilltops, made it appeal strongly to the Romantic movement which in turn influenced the form of much 19th century restoration and reconstruction.
Requirements:
CV + Photo required, Motivation letter related to the project
Age:
18-99
Location:
Rhens
Language(s):
English, German
Airport:
FRA: Frankfurt Main (Frankfurt, Germany)Vegetarian food will be available
There are different construction sites in Wukania. Volunteers are invited to help with renovation and maintenance work like clay plastering and painting. Every help is welcome, certain skills are not required. Skilled volunteers can learn how to work with wood like a carpenter, for example how to lay tiles on a wooden floor. Furthermore, help in the garden is needed. As heating is run with wood, firewood will be prepared and stored. There are some more ideas like building wooden boxes for storing vegetables in the winter, maintenance work in our library and to construct a shelter for drying clothes.Important part of the work is to prepare food for the group of volunteers and to keep facilities clean. For sure there will be the possibility to find any work in accordance with abilities and interests of the volunteers.
Study:
Inhabitants of Wukania would like to show you their life style and would like to discuss certain aspects of a life which is mostly self-determined, self-organized and community based. Possible questions for discussions are: What's the motivation to join this project? Does it really work? Which kind of problems appear? What are reasons, in the context of a sustainable lifestyle, for such projects like Wukania?If interested, we introduce you to other interesting projects by showing pictures and telling stories.Study part will follow interests of the volunteers.
Accomodation & food:
Accommodation will be very basic. Volunteers are invited to sleep in empty rooms which are only equipped with mattresses or simple beds. It is also possible to bring your own tent. Facilities are nearly the same like on a camping site: Food will be prepared in a big outdoor kitchen, showers are run with solar power, toilettes are composting toilets, a fire place and a baking oven made of clay can be used. In case of bad weather volunteers can use a saloon and the several seminar rooms for their stay. There is no heating in the rooms.
Location & leisure:
Volunteers can enjoy the nature around Wukania and can go swimming in the beautiful Wukensee as often they want. An excursion to Berlin and to other projects can be arranged.
Requirements:
Please do not forget to bring with you: sleeping bag, swimming things, work clothes, raingear and sturdy shoes. Food will be mostly vegetarian.Due to the effects of climate change, it would be great, if you could find a way to travel without aviation. For more information please see:https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/aviation_climate_change.pdf
Age:
18-26
Location:
Biesenthal
Language(s):
English, German
Airport:
SXF: Schonefeld (Berlin, Germany)Vegetarian food will be available
« The outside world did not interfere, because it seemed so distant, and so we spent our spare time getting to know each other and learning about each other countries', languages and cultures. Everyone was completely relaxed. This simply would not have been possible on any other type of holiday. VAP enabled me to have a truly memorable experience. »
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