Paraskoveyevka.

13.08 – 28.08.2006

The workcamp took place in a boarding school for mentally disabled children located in Paraskoveyevka village in Donetsk region. There were 17 volunteers in the camp: 6 people from Belgium (not all of us liked this fact), 3 from Poland, 2 Italians, a Frenchwoman, Swiss, Dutch and German girls and two Ukrainian campleaders. Concerning age division, most of the volunteers were young (about 20), but some were a bit older and had more experience, which helped a lot.

The work we did was renovation (taking off and putting on the wallpaper, painting etc.), cutting grass on the playground, picking weed in the schoolyard, washing windows. We mostly worked 3-4 hours a day between breakfast and lunch, after lunch it was too hot to work outside. Sometimes some volunteers worked after lunch and even after dinner (putting on the wallpaper).

The difficulties we had were about the staff of the school. Sometimes they didn’t trust us with important work. And there were cases when the director didn’t give us the assignment till the last moment so volunteers had to wait. It seemed like there were too many people and not enough work and at the same time the school teachers needed our help but were told we were busy.

Plus they were using our materials to work themselves.

During free time we played with children from the school and local children, played football, sometimes went to Artemovsk, to the lake or to the bar, had excursions (salt mine, champagne factory, Kharkiv) or just spent time getting to know each other and other cultures better.

As the study part we had two workshops dedicated to human rights. They were quite interesting for the volunteers though, as some people said, were too simple, and did not contain much unknown information.

Accommodation and meals

The toilet and the shower were not luxurious and at first most volunteers were shocked (the experienced ones were not) but in the end they had no other choice as to get used to them, so they did. Some even liked taking cold shower (for we didn’t have hot water) and said they would do the same at home which is a bit doubtfulJ.

It was more difficult with the food, we were served same meals as the children. We had two vegetarians and most of the time there was no vegetarian food available. But anyway the food was quite ok and we didn’t feel hungry.

Dynamics of the group

The atmosphere in the group was quite good. We spent good time together and learned more about other countries and people. We had our difficulties because one of the volunteers from Italy didn’t speak English. His girlfriend had to translate and other volunteers spoke French to him, so it was more or less ok, but he didn’t feel as good as he could have.

I think work and the time we spent together made us all very close and we overcame the language difficulties we had.

For future, I’d like to point out a few recommendations.

First of all, I think, it’s important for campleaders to arrive to the school at least a day earlier that the beginning of the camp to have a look around. Looking at the amount of the work, materials and tools, talking to the staff and director is crucial too. Make sure to discuss the work beforehand so that there is no time spent doing nothing.

Prepared by Anna Novgorodova, campleader