Report of the Workcamp “Together with us”
In the “Center for children” of the organization “People for People”

19 June - 2 July

Project Summary

Organizing a two-week-long summer holiday for disabled children from Edinet.

”People for People” is a NGO that acts in Edinet and has as its main aim the social development of the community through various possibilities for social integration of disadvantaged people. In 2004 they opened a Center for disabled children, where services as assistance of speech therapist, psychologist were offered. Financial support ended in 2005 and they had to stop their activities. Now they restarted the work on the very basic level with two educators. Around 20 mostly disabled children are visiting this center. They meet each other and play games, making their homeworks instead of staying alone at home. Our aim was to organize two special weeks of holidays for the children, including games, workshops, excursions in nature and intercultural activities.

The Volunteers implemented the holiday program, organized workshops on different subject, games, concerts, assist motor disabled children in excursion to nature, intercultural activities like interactive presentation of their countries, discussions with local youth.

1. Preparation beforhand

Visiting the “Center for children” in Edinet three times before the camp, Domnica Petrovici, the responsible person from “ People for people”, and me as campleader from AVI were planning on the technical aspects of the camp.

In three meetings with volunteers, we started discussing the program of the camp.

We made a schedule on the day, consisting of Morningenergizers (9.00 – 9.30), Outside activities (10.15 – 12.00), Handcraft activities in Laboratories (12.00 – 13.00), a theaterspectacle after lunch and different dance and singing activities in the afternoon. We decided on a detailed program for the first day of the camp and started collecting activities for the different parts of the program. Also, we decided about our common travel to Edinet. As not all volunteers came from Chisinau, we communicated alot through interenet on the activities. A meeting with the volunteers and Domnica Petrovici was unfortunatly not possible.

The main problem was that the participation of volunteers was fixed very late.

2. Technics

2.1. Logistics and food

As the center for children is quite small, we stayed in the house of Petrovici’s.

It was a great accomondation, everybody had a bed and all volunteers lived together in a seperate part of the house. During the day, we were at the center, which is about 10 minutes walk away.

Food was made by the volunteers. Two people were responsible for cooking lunch for the whole center, which they prepared at home and brought to the center, as well as cooking for us in the evenings. Nutrition we bought on the piata and in the supermarket.

2.2. Finances

Before the camp, we applied at two different financial fonds for support, at “Banca Mondiala” and “ Peacechild”. Unfortunatly, none succeeded. So we had to improvise the financiation of the camp.

The necessary things we paid from a donation of 100 euro.

For additional materials (watercolours, rope, brushes, lack, teethbrushes etc.) we paid 284 lei.

For food, we used some supplies from the center and fruits from the garden. From the donation, we had to add 1212 lei. Furthermore, we paid 300 lei for an excursion to Trinka.

The total sum is 1796 lei.

As we were acommondated in their private house, Petrovici had alot of additional costs for us (gas, soap etc.) and often they also paid for food.

The major of Edinet promised to help us with food-expenses up to 3500 lei for the camp.

We collected bills and hope it will work out.

If for any reasons not, there is a donation of 300 Euro from a German church for the work of the center, from which they are supposed to take the expenses they had for the camp.

3. Organisation

Responsible for the camp were mainly Domnica as Director of the center, and me as Campleader from AVI. We were planning the camp together and responsible for technical aspects.

A great help were the Laura and Claudia overtaking responsibility for the kitchen.

Having been at our meetings before in Chisinau, Olga and Cristina greatly overtake alot of responsibiliy for the actvities in the Center. The program we planned together in the evening.

Still, we should have separated more responsibility beforehand. I think I would have been a better campleader if i didn’t feel responsible for technical organisation, planning of activities, finances and working with Domnica on projects in the evenings at the same time. This might have improved the groupsituation, communication and collaboration planning our activities.

3.1. Involvement of the volunteers

Our main goal was making different activities with the children who are befiting of the center.

As we were constantly about 9 volunteers, we mostly splead up in three teams in the mornings:

Two of us were responsible for cooking and serving the food, two of us went for a long walk with two strongly disabled small twins, five of us were running activities in the center.

Every participant tried to implement special knowledges, so for example Iulia (student of psychology+logopaedie) made special gymnastic exercises with the twins every morning, Tatiana (student of psychology+logopaedie) made logopaedic exercises with the children in the mornings, Cristina and Olga (volunteer in a center for children) were running the handkraft workshops and the most attentive animators for the children, Irina (experienced with summer camps) was the creative head for program and educative activities, Nick and Olga were moderating those, Andrei and Nick were running sportive games, Laura and Claudia were making great food for the whole camp and planing the menue.

In the evenings we were planning together for the next days.

3.2 Children visiting the center

The number of childen visiting the center was quite changing. In the first week, there were about 20 children comming. But it is to remark that the number of disabled children was decreasing, while more and more children from the neighbourhood were comming.

In the second week, the number of children was quite smaller, between 6 and 11, of which 2-5 were disabled. Domnica was calling the children in the evenings and inviting them, but it didn’t help alot. We are not sure of the reason why the children stayed away, but there were different factors proposed:

• some children were spending holidays in sanatoriums, with their parents or visiting their grandparents in villages
• children were comming to center to enjoy their freetime and not to have program all the time

Because of the second argument, although we have controverse opinions, we agreed letting the children mainly play what they want and also allowing them watching TV half an hour the day.

A main problem was the attention to the disabled children, as they unfortunatly were a minority. In case the healthy children were playing on their own or we made games, it was often hard for the disabled children to involve and follow the activities. Unfortunatly, the small amount of children didn’t greatly increase the attention to each of them, but more the relaxing time for us.

4. Activities of the camp

4.1. Daily schedule

The schedule of the day was changing during the weeks as well as our plans from beforehand were not compleetly realizable. Generally, most days constists of following parts:

8.00 - Waking up
9.00 - Arriving at the center, Morning circle, energizers and gymnastics with the children

Preparing of breakfast
9.30 - Breakfast together with the children

Responsible people went for the walk with twins/do Gymnastics with them/prepared lunch
10.00 - Educational Activity at the center
10.30 - Going with children to a park
13.00 - Lunch
14.00 - Laboratory
15.00 Games, Dances
15.30 Goodbye activity

4.2. Activities of the days

So,18.6

12.00 Leaving from chisin auto edinet
16.00 Arrival of Domnica, Olea, Kristina, Marc, Svetlana, Andrei, Merle
19.00 Arrival of Laura and Claudia, Dinner
20.00 Meeting at “Center for children”

Getting to know each other, presenting plans, ideas and motivations for the camp

Mo,19.6

9.00 Meeting with the children at the center, getting to know each other
14.00 Handkraftworkshop: Making flowers for the room of the center
16.00 Arrival of Irina
20.00 Picking strawberries

Tue,20.6

14.15 Handkraftworkshop: Painting grapes out of ghips
15.00 Disco with the children

Wed,21.6

8.00 Visit at the major
Presenting workcamp and reminding of promised financial support (Volunteers)

14.15 Handkraftworkshop: Finishing grapes with lack
15.30 Eatingice-cream(withthechildren)
16.30 Visiting adisabled boy at home(volunteers)
17.00 Visiting a holidaycamp in Ruseni, making activities with 150 children there

Thu,22.6

13.30 Interactive Workshop on nutrition
Leaving of Andre
17.00 Swimming in lake (volunteers)

Fri, 23.6

9.45 Interactive Workshop on Rules
11.30 Visit and performance at the opening-festival of a kindergarden-playground
17.00 Taking the disabled twins to the lake
Arrival of Tatiana

Sa, 24.6

11.00 Going for a walk with twins
12.00-19.00 Planning finances, food, different Projects of YTNF and “Oameni pt. Oameni”
(Domnica+Merle)
21.00 Making plans for Monday (Volunteers)

So, 25.6

11.00 Going for a walk with twins in parc
12.00 Arrival of Maria
17.00 Swimming at the lake
20.00 Planning the week

Mo, 26.6

13.30 Pantomime
14.00 Handkraftworkshop: Flags for the center

Tue, 27.6

10.00 Water-war in the park
13.30 Interactive Workshop on teethbrushing

Wed, 28.6

10.00 Theater about teethbrushing
14.00 TV guests, Interviews+Filming
19.30 Presentation of SCI/AVI/YTNF for volunteers (Svetlana+Merle)
20.30 Discussion on style of our activities

Thu, 29.6

14.00 Handkraftworkshop with plasteline

Fri, 30.6

10.00 Theater workshop with fairytales, storytelling
14.00 Handkraftworkshop: Painting, Foodcollages

Sat,1.7.

9.00 Excursion to Trinka (with children)
17.00 Final Evaluation, Goodbye activity, Departure of Participants

5. Evaluationbow (nick, laura, tanja, julia, claudia, andrei)

5.1. What did you think reading the announcement of the workcamp?

Possibility to see Moldova
To experience what means volunteering
What to do, to come or not, and I came
to participate for sure
to go to put my theoretical knowledge in praxis
I said YES and thats it, I was sure to come
Possibility to contribute improving the conditions of this young people

5.2. What where your asteptations arriving at the camp?

I wasn’t sure what to expect because it was my first experience of that kind
I thought the center would be bigger and more children would come
To learn to work better with disabled children and to gain interest for them from their environment
To get to know people/specialists who work with this children and the possibilities of the children to integrate in the society
To meet more children and have more time with them
I thought I would meet desorientated children which whom I would have problems to find “common language”

5.3. How did you implement yourself in the work?

We intergrated us greatly and managed everything wonderfully
I tried to work us much as possible with the children so they could do something interesting for them and of course we had the nice walks in the park which were very nice as well for me as for the kids.
I worked mainly with the twins and with the children in the park, as well as in the laboratory with plastiline and applications.
I didn’t expect to end up in the kitchen, but I understoood that you just really have the wish to do it and everything is fine
I tried to give attention to each child. Especially I managed to play and explicate the rules of the game “dame”, to build toys of paper, to participate in the activitie sorganized by the other volunteers

5.4. How did you feel in the group together with the other volunteers?

Very good. Everybody had something interesting to contribute, to offer for the children, but also for the other volunteers. Friendsships were created in this two weeks which i consider to be very important.
I was together with great and cooperative volunteers
Very good and interesting
I enjoyed alot dancing Hora
wonderful

5.5. How did you feel together with the children in the center?

I was impressed how clever and full of live they were
The children were friendly and we felt like a family
Very good and open-minded, motivated to work more with them
Unexpected good, but also a bit embarassing because i didn’t really know how to behave towards some of them
wonderful

5.6. What did you achieve on a good level during the camp?

I learned to be more altruistic, to make compromises
I learned what means voluntary work
Patience and working together with them fairly, meaning that volunteers and children are equal and are in the need of attention and affection.
Defining working methods considering activities with the twins and other children, cooperation in the group
To make the children asking for a second portion of food (unexpected) and smiling. I hope we tought them some elmentary things, but I imagine whether they still remember the...
We managed not to exclude any child

5.7. What didnt work out fine?For what reasons?

We didn’t really manage to stay alot with the children beacsue we were mainly occupied in the kitchen
We didn’t manage to reach all our goals completely
Individual work with each child, we didn’t really make the laboratories by lack of time and motivation
I don’t think there was anything that didn’t work out... our personal ideas changed during the camp, but the program we stabilised the day before was respected
What we didn’t manage other should try to do better!!!

5.8. How could the failing have been prevented?

Having in mind thhat it doesn’t work out if everybodies cooking, I think we didn’t have a choice, but it wasn’t a problem because the children liked the food.
We should have made a more precise planification
Some basic knowledge about disabled children from all volunteers. Being more strict working with the chidren
Maybe more concentration of the volunteers

5.9. How do you appriciate the work of your collegs?

Many of them had experience working with children or simply with volunteering.Thanks to them the program was more interesting for the kids.
The volunteers activated the children as they could prooving a good team-spirit, although in my opinion it could have been even better – but opinions are different
I liked it alot, but more knowledge of the volunteers would be necessary
I don’t have comments... a pitty that some of us couldn’t stay for the whole camp because they had good ideas
Everybody tried to offer everything he could to giving this children the feeling of being special

5.10. What do you think about the number of volunteers?

In the beginning it seemed to large to me, but after sharing the activities I understood it was good like that. We managed to do everything we wanted.
It was enough, every volunteer was occupied with a small number of children
Normal
In the second week there were more volunteers than children.

5.11. What kind of problems did you have during work/ freetime?

There were no special problems
Not all children were interested to participate in the planned activities
Too little didactic materials
I enjoyed everything
There were no big problems, in generel it was good
No problems

5.11. What do you think about the accomondation?

It was good. The fact that we stayed all together brought us alot closer to each other.
It was like visiting grandparents, very hospital accomandation
Good and interesting
Very good, I didn’t expect to stay in a room with just one more person. Staying close to each other helped us getting to know each other better.
It was a good idea to be acommondated at home at Petrovicis. It was a wonderful acommonation.

5.13. Which proposals do you have for the future?

What would you like to change?

All in all it was good. If the activities will be planned sticter everything will be in order. "La mare a fost bine. Cred ca daca activitatile vor fi programate mai riguros totul va fi in regula. "
To have a more detailed and precise plan and at the same time to get to know more about the childrens preferences and what we have to expect in time.
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