This summer we are going to organize an international voluntary  camp here in Tramonti, at the Amalfi coast, where young people from around the world will come here to work and of course enjoy the stunning area together with us, this in order to share skills and knowledge with each other and to gain new experiences. The work camp will also raise awareness about the importance of keeping the environment clean and the volunteers will with their work contribute to something good for the local community.

ACARBIO organized this type of camp last year and it turned out very well. The volunteers did a great job and enjoyed their stay, so for me it feels very exciting to have the opportunity to be involved in the work camp for this year.

Similar to ACARBIOS previous work camp will also this one focus on the littering problem. The volunteers will collect garbage from the streets and as a second phase of the work camp will the participants in a creative way use the garbage to create new products, so called “upcycling”.

This weekend from the 21th to the 24th of May the  I went to Poggio Mirteto, which is a really beautiful place close to Rome, to learn about how to coordinate camps like the one we are going to organize this summer.

The coordinator course was organized by Youth Action for Peace Italia which is an organization who aims to give young people the opportunity to learn about peace and local development. This through exchanges where young people from different countries and cultures can meet to wider their openness to differences.

At the course we learned about leadership, teambuilding, conflict management, techniques of non-formal education, problem solving, right and duties of a coordinator and so on.

These days were full of information but the information was given in a fun and active ways so that you felt that you actually could remember what you were learning. We did also learn a lot of different games and activities that can be used as ice breakers or just to get people to wake up and get some energy during the work camp.

For me this weekend was really worthwhile and I met a lot of amazing people. So not only did I learn methods and techniques on how to coordinate a work camp I also learned a lot from the people that I met during these days.

The first day we got to meet an international group who during the previous week had prepared different workshops for us, it was very interesting to see the diverse and very creative ways in which they were creating the workshops, the theme was the not so uncomplicated subject human rights and they succeeded with helping us to understand more about it in a enjoyable and innovative way. I think that the idea of letting the international group, who had already been learning a lot during these week of training, teach us different ways of informal learning was a great idea. We could see how this group had planned all activities and through this we got a lot of valuable tips for our own camps.

At Saturday morning the international students left and now there were only the Italian group left and we were all there for the same reason, to learn about how to coordinate a voluntary camp. When I first arrived I did not really know what to expect from the weekend, for me everything felt very new, I have never been taking part of any work camps or done any longer voluntary service before. But I did not have to worry, these people were so open minded, friendly and openhearted so it felt easy to be a part of the group. Even though almost everyone where Italian or at least knew Italian they were so nice and friendly and were speaking English most of the time just to involve the few of us that did not speak very well and you could really feel that these people know how to involve and care about people around them, I learned a lot both from the trainers and from all the people participating in the course and I am sure that they are going to be great coordinators all of them.

Written by:Isa Wästlund