Report on Paraskoveyevka workcamp

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