Nonformal and environmental education in Otava region

Hi :-) Im Dawid.

I come from Rzeszów, Poland. Until the time i went to this volunteer project i was doing many different things, from working as employee up to leading my own companies. In one moment in my live happened something, what convince me to take decision to go to volunteer project EVS. The reason is a long story, so if someone want to know what was it, you can easy write to me and i will share with you my story. My project have place in Czech Republic, in small town Horazdovice. Town have a bit more than 5000 habitants, so you can imagine, how small is this town. I need only 45 minut to cross the city from one end to another end. There is not too many parties, city center is rather no fill by crowd of students even in weekend. There is silent and calm. Around town you can find beautiful nature. We have here park, which is long on few kilometers. It is surrounded by river and canal which was used in past for old mills. There is small dam On the end of this park “island”. This place is really amazing, you can there take deep breath and get rest. Just exist, liberate mind from everything. Around 1 hour of walk there is ruins of castle. Town have of course some restaurants, where you can eat lunch in good prices. There is also swimming pool, tennis court, football field and… bench with nice view :P

During my 12 months voluneer project in Horažďovice I became:

What I do in my job? Where I work?

This is top secret. I can’t say even word. Ok, you convience me, I will tell you something about it :-) I work in Dum Deti a Mladeze. This job is devided for 3 places

Envicentrum PROUD

Here usually take part longer visits of kids, which come here for few days from all over of Czech. We have prepared for them thematic programs. Usually all of them are about nature and getting know nature in practice way. During that program we can go for trip to forest, ruins of castle, on meadow, and collect there the insects to special plastic boxes, to find them later in special book and check what insects we found. As part of that program kids usually visiting our farm, where they can feed animals etc. More about it later. PROUD contain also accommodation for 30 persons. Next to center there is a river, where sometimes we can sail by boat. Sometimes we organize also rafting and kayaking and they are finished in this place. Here we have also kitchen, when all team and kids are eating.

DDM Zamek

This place is a bit like house of culture, center for youth and kids. Kids come here for circle of interest, where they learn for example playing guitar, languages, manual skills like sawing, making decorations, modeling, or even robotics and mechatronics etc. Here in winter take part lesson of archery. This place contain also big ballroom, where are sometimes konferences.

Prirodoveda Stanice

It is our educational farm. We have here many different animals and also big garden, where we have many plants, which we can eat. Kids come here to learn about nature in practical way. They can observe and feed animals, this home like this tropical ones, which are in special place with terrariums. They can also seeds a plants, watch a bees, or make a houses for animals. In summer there is a lessons of archery here. This is beautiful place, full of trees, bushes, flowers pretty much shielded from external world, so it is very calm and silent.

What can I say about volunteering in DDM?

Every of this place have own climate and i like to work in every of this places. What I like the most in my work is diversity. Every day I can do something different. One day i can work on farm feeding animals, next day i can make photos of some event and another day I can go for trip with kids which came to visit us. It impossible to be bored here.

Personally I feel here good. People who I work with are kind, city is super, neighborhood too. I grow here a lot in many different ways. As a part of job I could participate in course of photography or water sport instructor course. I also learn new language.

I recommend everyone take part in this kind of projects, it is great fun and learn and perfect time to find what you want to do in future or to better prepare for this.

Teaching an leisure time activities for kids

During my EVS project many times I was working with kids. I sometimes accompanied them on outdoor excursions, sometimes educational programs, events or even activities for local seniors or kindergartens: making fresh apple juice from apples grown in Stanice. I worked with kids also on summer camps and during leisure time activities in DDM. I have two circles of interest: one of them is teaching kids how to play guitar (kroužek Kytara) and another one is fencig (kroužek Šerm a LARP) – kids play with special self-made LARP swords and I teach them team work, fair play and other skills.

I really enjoy all of theese activities and I really like all of the kids I could meet here. Some of them also really like me, and it’s so nice to see it and to see how they enjoy spending time with me on different activities. After this experience I know, that I want do work like this in future. It is very important work I think, because it’s not only giving kids opportunity to learn some nice skills or just have fun but it also learning them about life, giving them opportunity to solve their problems, believe in themselves, learn how to cooperate with others and how to become good people. I’m glad that I can teach young people something important and see how it works, and how they improve their skills.

I hope all of them will have nice lives and I hope that in future I can also have this kind of job :-)

Working with animals

I like animals, so I’m glad that I have opportunity to work with animals and to learn more about their behavior and needs. There are many animals in our educational farm (Stanice) and sometimes animals are really funny :-). I like our pig Oldřich, but also rat Anton, hamsters, rabbits, small goats and actually all of them :-). I also like all activieties with animals and kids together: we present kids the animals, we assist when the kids feed them, observe them etc. Its very nice to see how children enjoy it and how much fun they have by taking care of our animals.

18/1/2019 Polski wieczór

On 18 th of January we (me and Gosia) have prepared a public event called Polsky večer (Polish evening). On this evening everyone could try 2 polish meals – ‘’krokiety’’ and ‘’racuchy’’. I love cooking, so it was a pleasure for me to cook for others. It was important to make the meals as good as possible, so im glad that it was delicious and everyone enjoyed it.

Next part of program was presentation about Poland. It was my first presentation in Czech language, so it wasn’t easy for me to do it, but with small help from public I did it and I think it was quite good :-) During preparing the presentation I realized again how beautiful Poland is, so I decided to spend more time to travel in my own country.

On the last part of the evening we watched Polish movie “Kiler” (in Polish with czech subtitles). It is really good comedy, and according to audience reaction I thinkthat it was a really good choice. Big thanks everyone who helpd us to do it and also big thanks everyone for coming to this event – I am very satisfied after it :-)

15/12/2018 Presentation in schools

In November and December me and Gosia had presentations in schools in Horazdovice and Susice. We were talking about EVS project, all possibilities it gives, how to apply and we were also talking about our personal experience with EVS. It was interesting experience for us and we was happy that we could do it. We are sure that this program can be nice chance for all young people to travel, to learn something new, meet new friends from all world and also to find out what they want to do in life. We were also showing some interesting information about Poland. They had option to ask us things which they want to know about Poland or EVS projects.

If someone will be interested in this project, we are open to give more information and to help this person organize everything. More information about EVS you can find in website of European Comission.

4/10/2018 Mini project – permaculture garden

During my EVS project, I had option to realize my own mini project. It’s part of EVS, every participant have this option. For mini projects volunteer can choose anything (of course legal things ;-) ), but mostly something what can be useful for others. Money for this project come from EVS project budget. I’m very interesting in gardening, mostly permaculture, so for my mini project I choose to make small permaculture garden. I get permission to make it and I found nice place behind main building of Prirodoveda stanice. I prepared soil, planted some vegetables and put mulching on top. Few month I was watering my plants and taking care about them. Every time I saw new vegetable appearing in garden I was really happy and satisfied. I discover that gardening is my new passion in live. All summer and part of autumn I had a lot of delicious food from it which I could share with others people. I think it was great success.

Beauties of my permaculture garden

27/8/2018 Summer Camps

Something what i like a lot was summer camps. I was part of 3 of them. First was summer camp „Jak vycvičit draka“ where kids was Vikings and they had to train a dragon and save a quinn. It took place near forest, in great village built specially for this summer camp.

On second camp called Za vynálezy všech dob kids wanted to help aliens from planet “Muju”. To do it they had to call some inventors from past time by special time machine. Inventors was teaching them some stuffs which they can later pass to friends from other planet. I was Tesla and I teach them how to make flash light.

Third one was family workcamp. Families from Europe and also from Asia come do Horažd´ovice to help us do some work on farm and PROUD center. We had also trip to Rabi, Prachen and rafting on Ottava. All of them was really nice and participant had great fun.

14/6/2018 Water sport instructor course and photography course

It’s really nice to be volunteer in DDM. I have a lot of option to learn new things. I could take part in some professional courses after which I receive certificate.

Water sport instructor course

One of them was course of water sport instructor in Vodácké centrum České Budějovice in České Vrbné. I learn there how to sail in many different kind of boats like kayak, canoe, rafts. I also learn what to do if I will fall to wild water to survive and to don’t drawn there. I also learn how save other people when they fall to river. It was really hard sometimes, and water was really cold this time, but it was great fun and I’m happy I could do it. After this we were going with kids for rafting in Ottava River so we could use new skills.

Photography course

Another option to learn was photography course by Tomáš Mašek in Sušice (check the picture of my fellow students on Tomáš Mašeks Facobook). Every Wednesday we was going there and we have 2 hours of lesson. Every lesson was about other part of this art. One day for example about light, another about composition etc. I really like photography, it is great fun to take photos so I’m glad that I could participate in this course. After it I have a lot of occasion to use my new skills because I was main photograph in many different event we had in DDM, PROUD and Prirodoveda Stanice.

I took part also in other events and conferences like Veletrh Ekologické výchovy in Chaloupky, Kněžice when I learned something more about permaculture, nature and working with kids in nature so I could also use this knowledge to improve my work in DDM.

My Fotoškola´s final project: Postapocalypse

Arrival and Midterm meeting

Part of every EVS project is taking a part in special seminars/workshops for volunteers. For this, all of the volunteers coming to the Czech Republic for project go to one city at the same time, stay in one hotel and take part in a seminar. I feel very lucky, because on my seminar I have met so amazing people! They weres from many different countries in Europe but also Near East. We have spend beautiful time together and made relationships for a long time.

On this training we had many workshops e. g. about communication, self-directed learning, team work, culture awareness and we have got some important tips about adaptation to other culture, and many, many more things. We also had a chance to share some of our experience with other fellow volunteers in open space. I also prepared my own workshops for both of those trainings. The first time I showed the participants a professional method how to teach people called Kolbe´s Cycle. The second time I taught them what to do if someone has an unique idea or invention – how to protect it, how to earn cash from that etc.

After official workshops we had occasion to know each other better by spending together evenings. It goes some time but we still have contacts and still we meet from time to time which is amazing. Im happy that I could participate on this great training and meet those people and learn something useable.