Midterm in the Volunteering Year

Six months of voluntary service in various hosting organisations are behind us, the settling-in phase, the second Corona winter, and finally we can meet again in person in a large group: we spend three intensive days together in the old Glashagen manor house.

The big group, that is 15 volunteers, the preparation team of 5 volunteers and 2 full-time staff, our workshop speaker, the language translator for Arabic and last but not least our cook. We come from Germany, Syria, Palestine, Turkey, Belarus, Algeria and Poland.

The day begins at 7 a.m. with breakfast preparations and heating: the old house has to be heated with wood stoves, so chopping, carrying wood and taking care of the stoves is part of the daily service. In between, the spring sun lures us outside again and again. Here, in remote Glashagen, with poor telephone and internet connections, it is easy to switch off for the time being. We use the first day for extensive reflection: If my voluntary service were a river, what would its course be? Straight or winding? What were the obstacles? What did you have to overcome? What or who helped you?

The second day was busy. Project planning is on the agenda. Multilingual, this is not such an easy task. With the help of the project planning method "baking a cake", numerous project ideas emerge in the course of the morning, which are further worked on in small groups in the course of the afternoon.

At the end of the day, we collect the results in a calendar and look forward to the numerous opportunities to get involved and meet again together. Planned are a bicycle workshop afternoon, a climate protection postcard action, two film evenings, a social media action on commemorative culture around Liberation Day on 8 May and a workshop on sustainable engagement and dealing with feelings of powerlessness.

Our last day was 24.2.2022, a day many will remember for a long time. The brutal attack by the Russian army on Ukraine overshadowed our day. Concerned faces reflecting anger and powerlessness, moving words, concern for friends and relatives in the region were shared in the morning round, as well as the feeling of being in the group and not alone.

Gutshaus Glashagen  Klimaschutz-Postkartenaktion, zwei Filmabende,