Between 31 of August -7th of September 2015, in Calimanesti – Caciulata, Valcea county, the first camp for the young volunteers from S.N.A.C ( National Strategy for Action in the Community) took part. The camp was part of the project „ Be a Volunteer for your Community!”, implemented by Catharsis Association, in partnership with Terre des hommes Foundation, Children’s High Level Group Association and FREE Association and supported by Norway EEA Grants.
In the camp participated 60 volunteers (50 pupils and 10 teachers) from 10 high schools from Romania, from Constanta, Teleorman, Iaşi, Vaslui, Neamţ, Bistriţa, Dolj şi Mureş, all gathered in order to develop their professional and personal skills in order to better implement projects that answer to the real needs of their community, provide help to the youth or the old beneficiaries, for whom life is more difficult.
The camp was very beautiful and intense lived by each participant because it created a „real space for learning”! The variety of the training methods, belonging to each partner’s expertise and the variety of the activities experienced by the youth every day assured a very close interaction among them and facilitated the possibility to know each other, become friends and plead together for this noble cause which is the volunteering!
“Volunteering is lived by heart and felt on your own skin. By having every day another workshop on a different topic, I’ve reshaped myself and realized the difference between going out of your comfort zone compared to be arrogant, I’ve discovered what means children with special needs and what does it mean, I’ve discovered that to write a successful project is like to create the bulb (it has one hundred problems and steps to follow until will light the souls of the others) and I’ve learned that without movement, games and sport, the magic circle of life is not completed.”
The thematic of the workshops was the following: Project management and teambuilding, Animation – Movement, Games and Sport, S.N.A.C – Techniques for working with children with special needs; Theatre, organizing events and fundraising. The theoretical and practical abilities developed along the workshops, were experienced among the real applications included in the program from the second part of the day, as the treasure hunt, discussions after the movies or the creation of the poster of the camp.
The atmosphere of the camp was very good, the pupils and their teachers got involved and they were very creative. Their ideas of community projects are ambitious and meant to last.
We wish them success from all our heart and we trust them and trust the achievement brought by their project for the community!
” Be a Volunteer for your community ” Camp revealed to me a secret that I wouldn’t have been able to understand only by myself: you don’t have to make imposing things to be a volunteer! You just have to have a dream and not give it up, you have to have the will and big plans. The world keep changing. Depends on us on which direction the balance of this change will go: for the best or for the worst! ”
“I don’t think I will ever forget what I’ve learned here, as I’ve learned whom I am: Ana – Maria Tihon Volunteer” Top of Form