Volunteer project to help areas in France hit by floods- Summer 2002

One of the qualities that we recommend in volunteers is adaptability – on a project, there is
always the possibility that things could change or just not be what you expected and we hope that Concordia volunteers will rise to this challenge and see it as a part of the whole experience. Lynne Moore describes how her group did just that – and the expected benefits that it brought –
when her project was hit by the floods that swept across Europe last summer.


Sommieres was one of the towns badly hit by the floods in the South of France in September. Before the flooding and for the first week of our project, the work involved renovating a room in the grounds of Le Cart and tidying up all 8 levels of the garden the centre had. The group of volunteers included people from France, Germany, Japan, Russia, Turkey and Slovakia. The work in the garden was far more popular than the work in the room since the room was small, airless and dust filled. Still, we all pitched in and helped in both places by rotating positions.



For our first weekend, we organised a trip to nearby Nimes. All of us enjoyed seeing the city and experiencing all it had to offer. On the Sunday, our plan had been to go hiking in the Cevenne mountains which surrounded Sommieres. However, our plans were stopped when it proceeded to rain all day (I left the UK to escape that!). Instead, we spent the day playing cards, and having heated discussions about the way the group was working and about the actual work itself. That evening it was still raining and there was lots of thunder and lightening.



The next morning we awoke to find the rain had not stopped and that our leaders cars were already 1 metre underwater. We moved them to a ‘drier’ spot out of the rain. Then came the news that it would get worse as they would have to open the gates of a nearby dam. We went out quickly to try and get some provisions as our cupboards were bare. All shops were were closed and in a short space of time we found our route back to the centre was over one metre under water. We had to wade home.



By the time we came back the water was coming down the main road (right outside our front door) like a river. Over the next two or three hours it rapidly rose. By that time, the centre, and indeed the town, had no electricity. When we went to bed that evening, the water had reached its peak (over three metres) and was starting to go down.


On Tuesday morning, when we woke, we found the water gone, but an awful lot of water and mud and dirt in its place! The whole basement (several large rooms of the centre) were full of dirt and very wet. All of us helped to clear the mess and throw out everything as it was ruined. It was this day that we saw how badly damaged the once beautiful mediaeval town was. It seemed like nothing had escaped – shops, houses, and much more. The town was full of emergency services and provisions such as bread water and wine. With the Le Cart Centre being so well placed and having many bedrooms and a restaurant, it quickly became like a refugee centre. People whose houses had been damaged stayed there and even the police and firemen from outside the area had meals in the centre. It provided an excellent service to the people of the town.



The group helped the centre by clearing it from the mud and also by helping the kitchen and restaurant cater for over 200 people per meal. This work was both physically and emotionally demanding as we were helping people who had lost everything, and there had also been people killed. We tried not to consider this until ‘after’ as we all wanted to help in any way possible. After Le Cart was cleaned out, we went into the rest of the town to offer our services to the other people of the town.We worked like this for almost the rest of the two weeks, apart from the weekends when we organised trips to the beach, walks in the vineyards and a visit to the Pont du Gard. Never before had nine people been so glad to get to a beach! After having worked so closely with each other, and having experienced what we did together, we really helped each other out.. Working in with no electricity, water or communications was hard for us all but didn’t particularly bother us. In fact, it was character building for all of us and helped us to appreciate things we had taken for granted at home and in the first week, as well as helping us to group together and get to know one another. Even the way things turned out with the floods, I would do the whole thing over again in a shot.


Lynne Moore

EVS in France- Summer 2002

For two years, Concordia has been working within a programme called the EVS short-term work-camp programme. European Voluntary Service is a volunteering programme developed and funded by the Directorate General Education and Culture of the European Commission. The programme is aimed toward young people undertaking a long term voluntary work experience. However, in order to encourage more young people to take that first step toward long term volunteering, the Commission agreed to the introduction of the EVS short term programme. As a way of increasing the accessibility o f volunteering, the EVS short term workcamp programme provides extra funding and support necessary for those individuals who for various reasons would be unable able to participate in international voluntary service otherwise. Since 2000, Concordia has sent three volunteers to participate in IVPs abroad under this scheme. Here, one of the volunteers talks about his experiences

My workcamp, La Petite Fosse is a small village in the Vosges mountains in France, tucked away somewhere between Nancy and Strasbourg. The aims of the camp were to clear a field, put up a fence and build a shelter for goats. On the camp there were ten volunteers and of course the two camp leaders. There were three English, (including myself) 3 Germans, 2 French, I Mexican and 1 from Japan, the camp leaders were both from France. The atmosphere in the camp was excellent, you couldn’t ask for a better bunch, everyone just seemed to click and get on with each other right from the start. The people who lived in the village where we worked made us feel welcome and we were invited to the town hall on our on our second night to meet the mayor and some of the locals. The only downfall was the almost constant downpour. I had never seen so much rain in my life. The only good days we had in which it didn’t rain were the first day, the last three days and the days when I cooked (typical) Luckily, someone had bought along a chess set so I spent most of my evenings playing, or teaching people how to play, chess. Overall it was a really good time and apart from the rain which I should be used to) I enjoyed myself and would recommend anyone to give a workcamp a try. My next aim is to do a long-term project and maybe go on to lead a camp as well. Thank you for reading and I hope you have a good time on your next camp.

Mark Brooks, Brighton.

Cierny Balog, Slovakia- Summer 2002

I fell in love last summer. With a small village in the middle of Slovakia. OK, there was a girl as well, but that's another story.

Washing in the river, hill walking, a very 'international' game of football, equally international food, very cheap beer, the cheapest ever haircut, singing round the campfire, sleeping under the stars, cycling up a never-ending hill, and most of all, making some great friends - choosing to do a project in Slovakia was one of the best things I ever did.

My first feeling on reaching Cierny Balog was of relief, at having found the place. It had taken several trains, a couple of buses and a plane, but the hot morning sun and beautiful scenery - the village sits in a valley of wooded hills with a river running through it - made it worthwhile.

The project was two weeks long and split into two parts. The first week we lived and worked at the village football ground. As this was my first volunteer project I was unsure what to expect, but we seemed to have things pretty good, with hot showers, proper beds, and even food laid on. Admittedly the food was of the school dinners variety, but with a Slovak twist, and was definitely edible.

We worked in the mornings, painting fences and doing other repairs at the football ground. Afternoons were free, and were spent walking, playing football and frisbee or just relaxing. Evenings were spent in the bar, where we all acquired a taste for the Czech beer (30p a pint anyone?) and something called Borovicka which some people won't forget.

But although great fun, the first week was just a warm- up for what was to come. We had been promised a 'back to nature' experience and we weren't disappointed. Our home was a beautiful campsite, bordered by a river on one side and a forest on the other. The bathroom was a mountain stream, and the camp had even its own cat.

Every day, dinner was cooked by two volunteers from a different country, with the Spanish omelette and Italian pasta proving very popular. These were of course eaten around the campfire. Accommodation was in a wooden cottage or, for the more adventurous, alfresco under the stars.

Our work for the second week involved various maintenance works on an historic narrow gauge railway. This was more strenuous than at the football ground, but again we only worked mornings, and due to the torrential rain that hit Central Europe over the summer we got a couple of days off.

Our wonderful leaders always kept us busy, organising day trips, as well as afternoon activities, and always had a game ready to fill five minutes or provide a break from working.

One of my personal highlights of the camp was a football match between our camp and another in the village. A pulled muscle (honest!) meant I was forced to play in goal, where I surprised everyone (myself included) with a virtuoso performance to keep the opposition's Italian striker at bay. We still lost but I was the toast of the project at dinner that night.

The best thing about the project though was definitely the friendship and banter between everyone. After two weeks it felt like I had known people for years and I still miss everyone.

Diego (Spain) and myself decided that the hot weather merited a drastic haircut, especially when Toms (Latvia) discovered it only cost 50p in the village. One of the Frenchmen, with the very un-French name of Wilson Dos Santos got Sachiko - from Japan - to teach him some 'useful' Japanese phrases. These were along the lines of 'Can you tickle my belly'. I then taught her some useful French; repeat after me,"Voulez vous couchez avec moi". Lidija (from Croatia)

decided I must be Scottish (I'm not) because I was mean to her, stealing her cigarettes. She changed her mind when I went to stay with her later in the summer though, in fact there must have been something in the water as we weren't the only couple to get together.

Slovakia may not sound the most glamorous or exotic destination, but with beautiful countryside, cheap beer and hot weather, it is one of Europe's hidden gems and a volunteer project is the perfect way to discover it. I regularly get emails from people wishing they were back in Cierny Balog instead of at home studying - guess I'm not the only one that's smitten.

Ian Anstey, Cierny Balog

Chapapote's Angels, Galicia- Winter 2002

Normal people in extraordinary places: 20 Italian volunteers from Legambiente in Galicia.
We are a group of men and women with the same motivation: to fight in front of this environmental disaster caused by the Prestige. We are working for the ocean: infinite, strong, brave, and alive, still breathing and fighting to make itself free from this sticky oil. We start to shiver, not only because it is cold. It's very hard to collect the oil while it's raining and windy. It's even more difficult to separate the oil from the water, but it's necessary before the whole coast becomes deeply contaminated, sentencing the beaches to death.

Click here for more pictures of projects in Spain

Click here for a country profile of Spain

The Fisherman's Drama, Spain- Winter 2002

The first Legambiente group has arrived in Galicia. They will stay for ten days, from the 8th of December until the 18th.

We are continuing to search for contaminated birds, from Fisterra to Muxia. At "Langosteira" beach we have just found eight "Chapapote" victims - Chapapote, a new galician word born to definite the thick oil poured into the sea by the Prestige...sounds even funny, but it's not. We have found the army cleaning the oil on the beaches, together with the fisherman, and with the Spanish and international volunteers. The fisherman are those most affected by the economic consequences of this tragedy. Those who have a license will receive some money from the government, but there are too many without a license...too many that live from the sea will receive nothing.

From the fishermen’s words we recognise a trauma, they are already thinking about other jobs, other places: "Because this oil we see at the beaches is a very small part from what is into the sea". His father, his grandfather and even before, for generations, a job as a part of a family; now, dramatically, it has been stopped.