Workcamp in Deutschland

 "Erhaltung von Naturdenkmälern"

  Ivenack 2009

  von Halena aus der Ukraine

 
I’d like to share my impressions about my first volunteer work camp experience in 2009 in Germany. From the very beginning I was hardly aware of how it would take place and whether it is worth trying. But now I know: it’s more than worth! It was fantastic!Looking behind I can say that without that camp experience my life would be really poor. Moreover, I plan to take part in one of the work camps next year!

Our camp took place in Reuterstadt Stavenhagen – a cozy small town in the heart of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in Germany. We were 12 great guys 16-24 years old from Germany, Ukraine, France, Russia, Turkey, and South Korea.
We worked in the nearby forest in Ivenack among the huge (more than) thousand years old (!) oak trees, deer, and other forest inhabitants. Each working day we spent 6 hours in the forest (9 a.m. – 15 p.m.) helping foresters in their daily work: rebuilding the old fences around the valuable species of fruit trees, removing odd plants, doing some cleaning work in the forest, renovations of the territory around the forest museum.
I had also an opportunity to guide children from the kindergarten and act as a translator for foreign students during their tours across the national park. It’s great getting to know the kind of work you’d probably never try outside the camp or vice versa put into practice the skills you already have. 
And it is always very interesting working on a project as a group when the results of the work are really obvious and you are proud of having done something really useful, when all are helpful to each other, when close interaction easily brings people from different countries, of different cultures, with different worldview together.

We cooked together, our free time we also planned ourselves and spent together. On our weekends we had unforgettable trips to Berlin, Baltic Sea (Warnemuende rules! :), Mueritz National Park where I saw bisons for the first time in my life, and the second largest German lake Mueritz.

It’s actually the first time I faced international group self-organization in practice. And it was incredible experiencing intercultural communication day after day during three weeks. All people I met in the camp are very special to me.
During our interactions we hanged each other for the better. We all learned something important and managed to do something we considered to be difficult before: to understand and tolerate, to apologize and forgive, to think more about the group interests not our own, to cook together, to practice as many foreign languages as possible, etc.
Close friends, fabulous experience, amazing impressions – that’s something above price, that’s something I am so thankful to IJGD for!

For those who still doubt – just choose the project to your taste, put on all your positiveness, and join the camp! You won’t regret! Believe me!