"About ecological awareness"
Stefan Evertz shares his experiences as a volunteer at an international workcamp in Twijzel, Netherlands
In the summer of 2011, I thought quite spontaneously that I would like to go abroad for a few weeks. Since I was relatively late with my planning and am neither a friend of package tourism - offers nor wanted to spend a lot of money, my search was quite limited. After a short internet search, I came across the last-minute workcamp placements offered by IJGD, a non-profit organization that helps young people get involved abroad.
At an international work camp, people from different parts of the world come together to work on a social or environmental project for a few weeks to a few months.
Participants work a few hours a day and in return do not have to pay anything for accommodation and food.
However, the organizations offering the work camps charge a fee (usually around 100 euros) for participation before they begin.
In my case, it was a two-week project in a nature reserve in the north of the Netherlands. The main tasks here were picking up reeds and cutting down smaller trees.
The afternoons were free and filled with activities. Mostly we explored the area by bike. For example, we rode to neighboring organic farms or went on a mudflat hike to one of the North Frisian islands. In the evenings, two people each cooked typical specialties from their home countries, which was definitely one of the highlights of the work camp for me.
Conclusion: I really enjoyed the two weeks in the Netherlands. Especially because you get to know people from different regions of the world at a work camp and it is a comparatively inexpensive way to spend time abroad. However, the ecological benefit was limited, at least in the project I worked on. This was because our work involved regular tasks that would normally have been done by paid laborers. However, working "outdoors" in a nature conservation project certainly promotes the ecological awareness of the participants, at least to some extent.
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More information:
- IJGD - International Youth Community Services
