Goodby Georgiana!

The last week for Georgiana was full with activities. She started to work for a calendar of the project so she had meetings with Natalie, the designer that helped her a lot. Looking forward to see the calendar printed.

She also had the last activity in school. She visit some students and she talked about EVS, Volunteers United projects, about her experience and activities that she did in JACis, prepared some games for youth and encouraged them to take part in different non formal activities.

The rest of the day she was busy saying goodbye to her friends, packing and preparing for leaving. On  Friday she had her goodbye party. JACis participants prepared some activities and said a big thank you for all her involvement during the last year.

It seams that Volunteers United arrived at the end. Now that we look back we can't believe that it's been one year already. One year in which we met a lot of people from all over the word, we've created friendships, we sow a lot of beautiful places, we discovered new traditions, cultures, we learned new languages, we did a lot of activities and we had beautiful results. There is one year full of memories, learning outcomes, something that we will never forget. We are all grateful to JACIs that made this possible and we are looking forward for the next opportunity that we will have to see each other again.

Begining of schools and apple week (1-13 th of September)

The schools has started and the good thing is that a lot of new people came in JACIs. The list with names was so long in the first week and we were very happy.

But the youth were not so happy about the beginning of the school. They already had long lesson and homework so JACis was the perfect place to come after school, complain about these problems and relax with a big cup of tea.


Between 7th and 11th of September we had apple week. Georgiana and Vija prepared  a lot of activities. That was pretty intense:
On Monday Vija cooked for us pancakes with apples very tasty. A new recipe to remember! The rest of the day we cut a lot of apples from color paper and we decorated JACis.

 On Tuesday we have stated to prepare our trip to the apple garden. We created a big apple as a gift for the owner of the garden.

On Wednesday, during the visit to the apple trees, the owner explain us his business, how he started, what kind of products he grow and sell, he presented us different kind of apples and how he takes care about them. We were very impressed to see besides a lot of apples trees, big and healthy tomatoes,  cucumbers, potatoes etc.
Wednesday was also Julia's birthday. Happy birthday Julia!
Thursday we cooked together apple pie  and we celebrate Karina Birthday, the last day of Agita and Olga in JACis. We had a big meal with a lot good food that Olga cooked for us.

Friday we paryicipated to a quiz  with some games about apples and Olga made another cake with apples.

Goodby Clem, Moritz and Paul! (17-30th of August)

The last two weeks of August were not so easy for JACis team. Vija and Agita together with the youth and Georgiana had to say officialy goodby to Paul, Moritz and Clemence.
Monday they prepared the last party for the three volunteers. A lot of emotions and memories filled JACis. We remembered together about all the activities that volunteers prepared during one year: a lot of ideas, teamwork, beautiful results, friendships... But their EVS arrived... We were in that point where we sayed thank you and see you soon.
The volunteers received each of them a beautiful presend from JACis team and enjoy for the last time the speciality of latvian cake. Very tasty! Also, they were very serious interviewed by the youth and had a lot of fun remembering the good moments that they live as a volunteers.
It was very interesting to discover their future plans but specialy the fact that there will be a lot of opportunities to meet them again.
The rest of the week was full with the last arrangement: tickets, lagguages, saying goodby to the friends from Rezekne etc.
Moritz left on 19th. Tamara had lead him to the airport and after that she spend the night in Riga in order to do the same for Paul and Clemence who had the plan on 20th.

After she sayed goodby to her friends, on 20th in Riga, Georgiana traveled to Sigulda where another romanian volunteer organized a nice event: SkirtBike. During 3 days, Georgiana meet local volunteers and youth, talked about EVS, her project and helped with the organisation on the event. She was very impressed about the city and she enjoy a lot the activities that she took part in.

The last week was pretty strange in JACis. It seems that all the youth left in the same time with the volunteers... So not so many activities happend in these days here.
Of course they were enjoying the last days of holiday and prepared for teh beguining of schools. We are waiting for them next week, with new ideas of projects

Our last week, 10th to 16th of Augst 2015

It is a special occasion, dear readers: This marks the last blog entry of the majority of the volunteers. Next week, Moritz, Clemence and Paul will leave, letting Georgiana alone in JACis, for a while at least. Moritz will go to Sweden, Clem to France and Paul to Germany. As they say in Germany; "Everything good has an end, only the sausage has two" (That is a real thing).

So, understandably, we were all incredibly busy preparing to leave, writing elaborate youth passes, photo books and packing huge pieces of luggage, just as we filled the figurative luggage of our minds with many different memories. Many things will have to stay behind, it is almost sad, but we will have space to gather new experiences with the help of what we achieved here.

But enough of the weird pathos, here is what really happened this week: We went kayaking on river Rezekne, starting about 13 km from upstream from the city. We separated the group into teams and had them solve amusing problems about their fictional European voluntary services, for example saving penguins in the Arctic, survive on the dark side of the moon or bringing teeming flora into the driest of deserts.  We stopped at a beautiful cottage, had a snack and then powered through the rest of the way, often getting out of the boats the push each other over rapids and fallen trees blocking our progress.

On Friday Georgiana and Clemence visited Aglona in one of the most important religious celebration from Latgale. They were surprise to see so many people coming from all over Latvia by car, by bicycle or just by foot in a long pelerinaj to see the procession for the day of Virgin Maria.

 

Summer camps (3-7 of August)

This week was really really special: we took part in two summer camps, we prepared a lot of activities, we had fun and we learnd new interesting things.

On Monday and Tuesday we spend time with the children from the Orthodox church within their camp. In the first day we split them in 4 groups: one of the group played interested board games with Moritz, another group learnd to creat mandale with color string with Georgiana, another one played with frisbee, balls and made bubbles from soap with Clemence and another one where participating in a face paiting workshop organized by youth from JACis.
At the end of the day, after so much work we enjoyed a fresh icecream coktail, with banana and peach. Very tasty :)

The second day, Vitalis came with a lot of ropes and created a small adventure park in the yard of Ortodox school. We helped him with the equipment for kids and safty arrangements. The last part of the day we cooked our traditional German bread.

On Wednesday and Thursday we went in Razna Sanatory, where kids with special needs had a camp suported by the Association "Angels with us". We worked in teams with youth from JACis. We split in 4 groups and we created a treasure hunt. The trail had 4 stops where eachone of our team were expected the kids with differets activities. We also spend time with kids, just playing with them. As it became a tradition, we cooked again our german gread and some barbeque and we lance the fire ballons.

What does it mean to be a volunteer? (27-31. July)

It was a full and constructive week for everybody here.
Monday we had Ligreto day. First, we started to clean the play-cards - we spend 2 hours on this activity but at the end they were like new.

After that we decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and start to play Ligreto in JACis yard. There were a lot of small kids which played for the first time this game. They enjoyed a lot.

Olga, the lady who takes care of JACis prepare some amaizing food for us. We were very happy to try the rice with meet but also teh apple cake. Thank you Olga!

Next day we had another big event in JACis:  a public caffee about volunteering. A lot of youth came to talk with us about what do you need to do in order to become volunteer, where you can do voluntering, what's happend after a volunteering project and how can you use your experience and new skills.  We had also a special menu, cookis, and jus and Clem did a great job being a waitress.

On Thursday, Moritz started to prepare some materials for celebrating Pinata. We have created from paper mache some ballons that later we will decorate, fill with candies and play with them.

On Friday we made the last shoping for the camps that we will have next week: we bouth new games, materials, food etc. When we came in JACis with all the shoping Paul and Olga waited for us with pancakes. Very tasty :)
In this weekend Rezekne celebrated the days of the city: festivals, concerts, markets, fireworks and water performaces. It was the first time we sow so many people in Rezekne. A great moment that we will never forget.

Another week in JACis (20th to 25th of July)

Last week was delicious. Well, the week in and of itself was not necessarily delicious, but the great things we produced in JACis definitely were.
We started by preparing some materials for the camp with Angel with us. Clemence and Georgiana dresssed some jars with color string and colored a lot of pistachio shells that we will use for handicrafts during the activities for kids with specials needs.

 
 On Thursday we prepared a cocktail made from ice cream, bananas and apple juice, and it hit exactly the right spot on that day, since it was our sports day of the week. We went to lake Kovsu to play beach volleyball and make bubbles out of a mixture of soap and water. But 2 hours of playing volleyball are indeed exhausting, and that made the delicious cold drink seem like a miracle that allowed us to cool down our overheated selves.

Then, the following Friday managed to even increase on the great drink from Thursday.
At the end of the week volunteers went to say goodby to the old JORIK. The building where was the theatre is going to be demolished so the students from art school prepared some special moments inside of old JORIK: expositions, painting, concerts, performaces, party. It was a preatty interesting "funeral".

Sport week in Zeimuls (13-19 July)

Zeimuls, Jacis and Draugu Centre wrote a special project for this week with some teenagers. It was called the sport week. So we participated in some sport activities, but also worked in a lot of individual tasks, like our final reports, the story of EVS, and the preparation of futures project.

On 13 July we went to Zeimuls to learn how to play the drums on gymnastic balls. We were quite a lot of people. And we discovered that it's really not easy to be in rhythm all together on the music.
After this, we went canoeing on the river of Rezekne.

On 14 July, we met to debrief about the seminar and to celebrate the birthday of Vija and Clémence. And Clémence had an interview about EVS in Rezekne for a newspaper.

On 15 July, Moritz stayed home to prepare future activities. Clémence, Georgianna and Paul came to make the trip of 15 km in Canoe/Kayak, on the river of Rezekne and followed the sport week even if they did it by themselves and not in the project.

Then during 4 days, it was the international Baltica Festival 2015. Clemence was playing and dancing there. She went to Riga the two first days. It was an amazing time for her, and she integrated and learned a lot about Latvian folklore and music. The two other days she played and danced in Rezekne. Georgiana, Tamara, Vincent and two other spanish volunteer in an other city went to enjoy the festival.

During the weekend Paul came to one musical festival Positivus.

After teh big event (6-12 of July)

The week after the seminar was quite relaxed for the volunteers. Everyone was a little bit tired but also happy that everything went so well!

On Monday we had a meeting to make a plan for the last month of Moritz, Clem and Paul. We are going to make some movie activity, an outdoor day and we will go kayaking again in august.

 On Tuesday Clemence left Rezekne early in the morning and went to Riga where she participated in the 11th Latvijas skolu jaunatnes dziemu un deju svetki which is a very famous Latvian folk music and dance festival. They were playing every day and also danced a lot! She even was on the television playing one song! On Friday it was Clemences birthday and although she didn’t expect anything the other musicians gave her some nice gifts like a concert ticket for the festival and a dried fish instead of flowers. All in all it was a very interesting week for her but she was also super exhausted when she finally came back to Rezekne on Sunday evening!

In JACis the volunteers had a quite interesting week because there were a lot of youngsters that were really active so we played a lot of games with them as monopoly, durak, uno and pool. On Wednesday we also made some handicrafts like flowers and ships made from paper.

On Thursday morning the JACis team went to the job agency in Rezekne to present the Erasmus+ program and especially the EVS to unemployed young people. Compared to the last time we were there this time there were a few really interested people who were asking questions! We don’t know if they will come to JACis to get more information or to have a sending organization but at least we informed them about the opportunity to do an EVS and maybe they will remember one day!

And then on Friday Moritz and Paul tried to organize a digital competence workshop about gaming because they expected the youngsters to be interested at least in this kind of activity but pitifully only one boy showed up and played one match of age of empires with them. It was a little bit disappointing but we hope that the next time there will be more participants!

Be a volunteer, 2015!

This was a long and full week. We started with hard work taking care of the last details for the seminar "Be a volunteer, 2015!". We staged a last meeting to check the program and the activities, to remember the task of each volunteer and to buy the materials that we needed.
Each of us prepared their own session very carefully and at the same time we packed a lot of games and materials for our free time.

On Tuesday morning we all met in JACis: 24 participants were ready with their backpack to start 3 days full of activities and fun. We took the bus to Razna lake and while the youth were arranging their rooms, the volunteers started to decorate the seminar room and to prepare the first games.
We started at 11:00 with some introductory games in which the youth talked about their hobbies but also some particular information. After we talked about the plan for the 3 days we decided the rules that we needed to respect during the seminar and we discovered who will be our "secret friends".

The lunch came quickly with good food. It was perfect for giving us enogh energy for the upcoming activities. We started with some trust activities which made us to think about the importance of trusting in the members of our team and understand better what we have to do in order to gain the trust of other people.

After that the youth received an important task: to move "toxic waste" to a safe place. It was not an easy job. They had to work in teams, to respect some safety rules and to find solutions. In this way we discovered the importance of communication and of assuming the responsibilities when we work in teams.

In order to celebrate our work we gathered in order to play another kind of football: football in Alaska. We ran a lot to catch a ball without air and to collect points by running in circles around our huddled together teams. That was refreshing!

Last session before the dinner was dedicated to Erasmus+ programme and EVS. Participants learned about the opportunities offered by Erasmus + and they understood the steps that they have to follow in order to start an EVS experience The movie and group discussion in which the volunteers shared from their experience were really helpful.

After dinner we went to a long walk in the forest. On the way the youth had to resolve different task like walking on the line as a train, making a square being blind, dancing limbo. We had 4 stops and in each of them one of the volunteers tell their story about have they became an EVS volunteer.

The night was short because the youth started to plan with Agita and Vija the secret party for the second evening. For us, the volunteers was forbidden to pass through the big room or to stay around and the team but we were wondering about what kind of surprise they will prepare for us.


On Wednesday we started early in the morning with some sport exercises lead by Julija. After breakfast we had a large group energizer about Tarzan and his friend. The youth split in two groups and by rotation they participated in two workshop: one about active citizenship and one about employability. Together we learned about the importance of being an active citizen, and how we can solve the problems from our community in a creative way. We also learned about the importance of different job in community and which are the most required competences in job market. Beside this useful information we had a lot of fun playing human knot, travelling with a magic carpet, guessing jobs, creating posters or finding solution for passing a ball through all the hands in the shortest time possible. 

After lunch we had a pretty hard session with information about how we can write a CV and motivational letter. In the same time we discovered some tips and tricks about how we should react during an interview. The youth had time to write their own motivational letters and to experience a short interview with the volunteers after that.

After such an intensive session it was time for some movement. Split in 2 teams the youth participated in a treasure hunt in order to test their knowledge about Erasmus+ and EVS but also their creativity and teamwork skills. On the way they solved riddles and puzzle, they drew, danced, sang etc.

The evening was dedicated to us, the EVS volunteers.The youth from JACis prepared many interesting tasks for us: we needed to demonstrate that we are real volunteers so we had to create a magic portal, to drew all together, to escape from some special handcuffs, to dance etc. Finally they accepted us as volunteers and they offered us special gifts in order to thank us for our job in JACis during the year. Thank you also, dear JACis for giving us this great opportunity to grow together and make nice projects.

Before going to sleep (which was pretty late, in the morning for most of us) we launched flying lampions, and we sang around a camp fire.It was a nice and relaxing evening that we all enjoyed.

The time flew quickly and the last day of the seminar came soon. We started with some free time when we played games and enjoyed the lake and the sun. And because we didn't forget about Katja we started to think about a special message that we can send to her.

With such a lot of information that we gain during the seminar was a pity if we wouldn't take some time and discover in which way we could use it after in JACis. But for started this we needed to train a little bit our creativity so we played some games in which we had to enumerate different ways of using a cupand we create a story started from some pictures. After this split in 4 groups youth talked about the problems in their community and they found ideas of S volunteers in JACis.

After lunch we learned about youth pass in a very interactive way. Youthe were split in small teams of 3-4 participants and they had to fill a passport with competences. In order to gain this competences they had to complete some tasks. The EVS volunteers were experts that help them during their way, give them information, advice etc.

Like all the seminars and training we finished the day by an evaluation session. Each of the participants had the opportunity to write down what they appreciate to the seminar and what they would like to change. They shared the most important moments from these days and what they learned. at the end they need to gues who was their special friend. This was a perfect moment for sharing the nice things that others did for us and to offeres certificats and gifts to all the participants.

We didn't forget Katya, so, before leaving back home, we took some time to film a short movie for her. I hope you will like it :). Congratulation for your baby!Olga, welcome in JACis team!
On Friday, even if we were tired we get together to celebrate the end of teh seminar and to remember about good moments that we lived together.