Hello all! Since my volunteering finishes next week I decided that today would be a good idea to write a summary of my favorite experiences that I had during my 6 months volunteering in order to motivate more people to try the ESC volunteering opportunity.
So let’s start with march- during this month I had my on-arrival training by my supervisor Misha. Then in April we went to Todorovo village where I saw for a first time Lazerki, we gave a workshop to the children in the village, we created a seed library in the pensioner’s club and we cleaned the Chernyanka eco road. We visited Venets permaculture farm where I interviewed our amazing host called Catherine.
In may we went to the village of Mezek where I had the luck to interview our host Mer- the creator of the blog Zemya nazaem. She helped us organize workshops in the local cultural center where she works. We taught the local children how to plant a garden through the permaculture principles and we were able to teach their parents about permaculture as well. Our hearts were full with joy since the locals were so friendly and open-minded. Our adventure finished with a hike to an ancient thracian tomb where we saw wild boar with her babies and a wonderful sunset from Sheynovets peak.
In June we visited an Ukrainian refugee community in Pernik where we gave a workshop on plant guilds and we created masks of the plant guilds with the children. We also tried a new game called Plexo with illustrations of the plant guilds which our wonderful volunteer Maria has created. We wanted to help the refugees to create a solidarity project there but unfortunately a month or two later they were asked to leave the place so we weren’t able to do that.
I had the opportunity to interview for our podcast a really inspiring person- the urbanist Angel Burov with whom we were speaking about the UrbiNat project and his journey to permaculture. In July was one of my favorite experiences – the on-arrival training organized by the National agency where I met with other volunteers which were full of kindness, love, hope and passion for the causes that they work with.
We met online with an inspiring woman called Varvara and we spoke about helping local young people to create a Solidarity project in her permaculture farm in Hisarya. I met with another amazing woman as well- Katya from Community Urban bio-garden Vitosha. We were discussing the translation of the handbook that I am working on for the LAND project. We visited a possible land center in the mountains where I met with our new volunteer called Alex. In August I was mainly working on translating the handbook and creating our Patreon profile in order to start a crowdfunding campaign for re-publishing of the children’s book Friends in the garden both in Bulgarian and English.
All in all, my 6-month volunteering project was an unforgettable experience which I will keep in my heart forever. I am so grateful to my supervisor Misha for supporting me, answering to all my questions and teaching me about Permaculture. I am thankful for my meeting with the other volunteer Maria as well. We had so many wonderful conversations and I was so lucky to meet a person like her. We had a lot of things in common. I strongly believe that the ESC volunteering is an experience that all young people should try especially in a wonderful organisation such as Green school village and Permaculture association of Bulgaria. Thank you all for reading about my ESC journey.
See you next week,
Polin
