YTNF :: SVITUkraine

By Masha Servetnik and Anya Mazurchuk

What, when – Paraskoveyevka special boarding school, Paraskoveyevka village, Donetsk region, Ukraine
13-24 August 2007

Who – Masha Servetnik, Anya Mazurchuk – Ukraine, campleaders
Elisa Webber, Italy
Alzebeta Chelmarova, Czech Republic
Sien Gelders, Belgium

Work – wallpapering, painting, helping with reconstruction of school, cleaning, collecting pears and apples, helping in the kitchen. We worked 4 hours a day. Every time when there was no work for us we were trying to find something.

Food/accommodation – everything was provided by local partners. We had a room for living, but during 4 days the room was without electricity. We were provided with everything we needed. We had enough food (vegetables, fruits, milk products, meat, fish, even candies).

Free time, excursions, group atmosphere – we had enough free time. We were usually working, swimming in the salt lake, playing different games, reading books, shopping, listening the music. We have spent our day off in Artemovsk. There we were in the historic museum, luna-park, sightseeing. Then we went to the disco. Next day we were in Donetsk. There we were sightseeing, visited exhibition of local painters, went to the café in the central part of the city. The last days off we spent in Kharkiv. There we took part in the Independence Day, sightseeing, saw fireworks. The atmosphere was friendly in the group. We always tried to help each other.

Study part – human rights travellers visited us with their presentation. We all enjoyed it and learnt a lot about human rights and problems all over the world. We also had international evenings where we found out a lot of new interesting information. Also we tried to learn the basic phrases and words of the country which was presented to us. We also enjoyed delicious national food which was prepared in the spirit of international cooperation.

Problems, conflicts – we had some disagreements because of the difference of cultures but we always managed to communicate it and found solution all together

Ideas, follow-up, suggestions for improvement
- electricity
- hot water
- more coordination in the work
- more variable food

August 14-28, 2007 ♦ Today we came to Paraskoveyevka village. We got acquainted with each other. I am very tired now but I like this place and people which came here. ♦ Elisabeth says that she feels lucky because she is in good company and she is not anymore afraid of communication problems and she does not care about the building state, it makes it much more friendly ♦ It’s the people that makes special one place and not the place in itself. There are a lot of things I want to do and know about a lot of things I’ll find lot of answer and I am looking forward for next days ♦ Today was a complicated, but VERY interesting and productive day. ♦ I think that I have a wonderful company. Details...

By Maria Servetnik Helping with reconstruction of the school, putting wall-paper, painting windows, spending time we became Paraskoveyevka Team. The symbol of the Paraskoveyevka Team was a pear. Pears in Paraskoveyevka are really very tasty, the tastiest in Ukraine. Beside this that we were helping with renovation of the school, volunteers also cut pears for compote of stewed fruits. In the free time we were spending a lot of time outside, we were on a salty lake, which was formed on the site of former salt mine. On the salty lake there is a place with clay which has medicinal properties, so we were treating our “sick joints” (being 20 years old!), and building castles and different things, but as a result all this “looked like mess”. Details...