The Wald-Michelbach community is located in a beautiful forest area, marked by traditional German houses. Here, your help is needed to renovate a park for the community’s residents. Your team will need to undertake various tasks, such as renewing the seating area in a music pavilion, for which you will also need to remove the wood. Here, your team will also plant a spice garden and paint the pavilion. In the park, your team will also need to create walking paths, renew the old walking paths, and barriers to the paths need to be removed. The playground will be redone with new equipment, so that even younger children can play here. The pond will be made a flat water zone in order to create a new biotope.
Leisure Time:
There are countless travel opportunities, such as to Heidelberg, Mannheim, and Frankfurt. In the community itself, there is a large outdoor pool near a slide. With local organizations you can organize a beach volleyball tournament, or visit the nearby cities of Weinheim, Speyer, and Darmstadt.
Age:
16-26
Location:
Wald-Michelbach, Hesse; Mannheim 35 km, Heidelberg 40 km, Frankfurt 85 km.
Accommodation:
You will be staying in Wald-Michelbach. Meals will be prepared as a group.
This year s project will consist of different projects in the nature: You will maintain hiking trails around Betzenstein. The international group will also build a path of senses . It is a path covered with different materials. You will prepare the ground, dig holes in the ground and fill them with different materials (stones, wooden splints-). Children can experience different sensations when walking on it. Please take sturdy shoes / boots with you as the hiking trails can be quite steep
Accomodation & food:
You will live in a gym hall right next to the construction site of the playground. Toilets, showers, mats are at hand. Also, a kitchen is to be found in the school building next door. Since the gym hall lies quite central you will have all necessary places available: pharmacy, bakery, butcher- For bigger shopping you will find supermarkets in the next village.
Location & leisure:
The Bavarian region in which Betzenstein is placed is called Little Switzerland i for a reason: Its beautiful surrounding invites to extended adventures and hiking trips in the region. There are all kinds of trails and possibilities to experience the unique nature. In the weekends there will be busses running to cities nearby like Nuernberg (Nuremberg) or Pegnitz. Your hosts are happy to show you around and to get to know you throughout the two weeks A lot of fun and very interested people await you
Please be prepared to work only outside The work will take place in a natural landmark in the forest with more than fifteen kinds of trees. Your help will be needed to do different construction and environmental works, e.g. demolishing an old wooden viewpoint on the walking way, repairing some parts of the way or preparing a place for a new wooden viewpoint. You will also take care of a walking way around the Eggesin-lake. Please be prepared for any work to help the rangers.
Accomodation & food:
You will sleep in a little horse farm in two camping trailers and in a tent. There is one place for shower and toilets. Furthermore you will have another biological toilet and solar showers. Your kitchen is a little wooden summerhouse.
Location & leisure:
The natural park Am Stettiner Haff is situated in the north-east of Germany. The camp will take place in Ludwigshof, which is one of the smallest villages of Mecklenburg- West Pomerania, directly on the Polish border. Ludwigshof is surrounded by a beautiful landscape with a lot of forests.
Requirements:
You have to be able to ride a bike; light and heavy outdoor work
The romantic Karlstal canyon is one of the prettiest destinations in this biosphere reserve. Here, in the middle of this nature preservation area, will be your worksite. The Deutscher Wald e.V. protection agency has prepared excellent and diverse nature preservation tasks for your team. These include various renaturation tasks and surveying and mapping of certain plants and animals. Other tasks your team will undertake are installing a pond and tasks to protect rare plants. In the nearby House of Sustainability near the German-French border, your group will help install a barefoot path, where you will receive plenty of information about sustainability and nature preservation.
Leisure Time:
Your team will be staying in the heart of the Pfalz forest region, which includes a biosphere reserve. This reserve is the largest connected forest area in Germany, and contains hiking and climbing opportunities, so you will have the chance to climb trees or try out the tree top course in Fischbach. At your tent area you will have your own swimming area, a lake, and a grill area. You can rent boats nearby, and there are also mini golf courses and football pitches. Travel opportunities include the Wilenstein Fortress, canoeing, horseback riding, Kaiserslautern, Mains, Mannheim, and Heidelberg. You can even travel to France and visit Strasbourg. Reserve
Age:
16-26
Location:
Karlstal in Rhineland Palatinate; Kaiserslautern 15 km, Heidelberg 85 km, Strasbourg 100 km
Accommodation:
In huts at the Gelterswoog youth tent area near Kaiserslautern. There is a kitchen and common room (www.feuerwehr-kaiserslautern.de/zeltplatz). Meals will be prepared as a group.
The Storkow Peace Village is an anti-racist youth project which promoted humanity, solidarity, and intercultural youth work. Your team s help is needed to renovate and maintain green spaces in the city and the grounds of the Peace Village. After work, this camp offers an opportunity to improve your command of German. Two hours of instruction daily and using German in everyday situations will do a great deal to improve your language abilities. Your language instructors are native speakers and have experienced in teaching German as a foreign language. They will also be a part of your team for the entire duration of camp.
Accomodation & food:
You will be staying in a three story house in the Storkow Peace Village. Meals will be prepared as a group.
Location & leisure:
Brandenburg; Storkow is located 50 km southeast of Berlin. Storkow is one of the oldest city in Brandenburg and has a historic fortress for you to visit. Along with cultural opportunities, your team will also be able to use the nearby sports facilities to play volleyball, basketball, and soccer. In the area you can travel to a lake, a climbing park, or to a zoo. Berlin is less than an hour train ride away.
The project will consist of two parts i a practical working part and a study part .In the first half of the days the practical working part will take place and in the afternoons and evenings there will be time for the study activities. Concerning the working part, the volunteers will do gardening and care in the different parks of the Classical Weimar. They will work seven hours a day, five days a week.On one side the volunteers will support the regular works in the Park on the Ilm, the Park in Tiefurt, the Park in Ettersburg and the Park in Ossmannstedt as cutting grass, collecting leaves, taking care for flowers etc. This work will show the fact, that heritage cannot exist without permanent care, even more a garden and park architecture. On the other side the volunteers will overtake the responsibility for an abandoned part of the Belvedere Park by cutting small trees, bringing back view axes, rebuilding paths etc. This part of the work will show that also in a short time of only two weeks there can be seen a real result of the work. Additionally it will show that also in the rich and well organized Germany exist parts of heritage sites which had been for long times without care.The study part will give the theoretical background for the project. Depending on the interests of the volunteers there will be lections and guided tours about Classical Weimar organized for example by Klassik Stiftung Weimar, that is one of the major project partners. The study part will also bring the input of the project into a wider public. It also includes meetings with NGOs in Weimar and Thuringia, students and with the press. In their spare time the volunteers will have the possibility to visit museums and exhibitions i for the duration of the project they will have free entrance to all museums managed by Klassik Stiftung Weimar. The best way to be mobile in a town like Weimar, with lots of gardens and parks to discover, is by bike. So the participants will get bicycles during their stay. Depending on the interests of the volunteers, on the weekend will take place an excursion to another UNESCO World Heritage Site consisting of historical parks and gardens, called Garden Kingdom of Dessau-Worlitz.
Accomodation & food:
Shared 8- or 6- bed-room in a hostel in the city warm showers and toiletsThe 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.
In the Oesel Landscape Preservation Area, 5 km south of Wolfenbuette, there are rare plant and animal species that call the area home. These need to be protected. In order to protect their habitat and diversity, the neglected grassland area needs to be enlarged and expanded. For this, trees and bushes that have developed there need to be removed, since they provide too much shade for the original field. Your team will be supported an helped by local workers of the BUND Organization (Bund fuer Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland, www.bund-bs.de), a German organization for environmental and nature preservation. During the project you will learn plenty about nature preservation. For transportation to and from the worksite as well as for free time activities there will be a car available for you.
Information about BUND in Braunschweig and Wolfenbuettel can be found at www.bund-bs.de; www.wolfenbuettel.bund.net
Information about Oesel can be found at www.wolfenbuettel.bund.net/themen_und_projekte/biotopschutz; http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96sel_%28Berg%29; Zur Gemeinde Denkte: http://www.samtgemeinde-asse.de/samtgemeinde/mitgliedsgemeinden/denkte/
Free Time:
Denkte is a small town 5 km from Wolfenbuette, an old seat of power with more than 600 maintained ‘Fachwerkhaeuser’ (those traditional German houses), many museums, and sightseeing. The city has 56,000 residents (wolfenbuettel-tourismus.de). You can travel to Braunschweig, Wolfsburg, or throughout the Harz region. www.wolfenbuettel-tourismus.de; www.braunschweig.de; www.wolfsburg.de; www.harzinfo.de
Age:
16-26
Location:
Lower Saxony; Wolfenbuettel 5 km, Braunschweig 20 km, Wolfsburg 50 km.
Nearest Train Station:
Wolfenbuettel
Airport:
Hanover
Accommodation:
A tent camp in a youth camp run by the ‘Kreisjugendpflege Wolfenbuettel’, a youth center. Meals will be prepared as a group.
Note:
The project will by physically challenging and involve work with thorny plants.
Special Requirement:
You should be physically fit enough for challenging work.
Open Houses attaches great importance to renewable energy. The heating system on the castle is based on solar power and wood fired heating. Under this aspect the volunteers will collect and cut firewood from the forests nearby, which they find on the ground. The volunteers will also bring the wood from the forest to the castle. Therefore they need to load up the wood to a truck and unload it on the castle to store it under a roofed place for wintertime. The branches will be used to build traditional fences.The natural environment around the castle is listed as National Nature Heritage and Open Houses supports this idea by cleaning the forest with the activity of the volunteer groups.Also the volunteers will prune of the paths of weeds and small trees, to keep them accessible not only for utility vehicles, but also for hikers and walker in the nature reserved woods.Another important task for these campgroups is to transport building material. As parts of the castle are only accessible by foot the volunteers will help to transport manually material from and to the building site.The volunteers will also continue the cultivation of the green areas around the castle.
Accomodation & food:
Within the old service buildings of the castle, you will stay in four little houses with 2-, 3- and 4-bedrooms with showers (limited hot water) and toilettes. The equipment is simple but fair. The fully equipped kitchen, which is situated next to the accommodation houses, is a separate building with large tables and benches inside. The atmosphere is rustic and historic.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 castle is situated next to a nature protected area. You can explore the landscape by foot; worth seeing is the chapel in Munchenlohra. Excursions to Sondershausen, Muhlhausen or Nordhausen will be discussed once you arrived.
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