Zdraveite, hello dear all,
After this amazing time in the village of Dolen I am back in Sofia, back to the city life. This required again some adaptation to the new rhythm of life but I was also missing it. I am getting to know the city and we have been working in some projects writing and some teaching materials. In today’s post I will share with you an interview with Magdalina Chavdarova “Inka” who kindly accepted to tell me a bit about her experiences and her job working with kids in a Forest School. She is a member of the Green School Village (GSV) association and in 2014 she took her Permaculture Design Course (PDC) with the Permaculture Association of Bulgaria (PAB), a branch of GSV. As well, on Saturday, she invited me to participate in a workshop for kids to make a Sock Monster, so I will show you how it went and introduce you to some of our new monsters friends.
Her journey about forest school and outdoor schooling adventure started when she was in maternity care with her older daughter and they had a cooperative project with other families to raise their kids and that is when she realized she loves to be with kids and decided to make a change in her carrier as a landscape designer towards being a kids mentor. They used to got everyday to Vistosha mountain and they do camps with kids through the different seasons so they can experience the changes in the nature and it was a reconnecting time with flora and fauna. Some time afterwards, together with a friend from the UK, they started the Moss Beard Forest School project (https://www.facebook.com/myhestabrada/). The name was inspired on a tale from an Estonian author about a man who knows a lot about nature and has a mossy beard. Three years later now, they take kids for a week or for a day trip to the woods and they are still looking to work in the nature and develop themshelves and the current project is to build their own base outside of the city.
People seem to like the Forest School and they like to be in the mountains and it has had a great acceptance in the city. Even though some parents don’t like kids to get dirty and to be in risky places, some others join the activities and enjoy spending time with their children. A Forest School should happen regularly and have a fixed place, what makes it different from scouts or other outdoors activities. However, it should be flexible and need to adapt in case the interests of kids is flowing towards other directions. It is open to everyone, and should allow to develop hollistically the children. Rather than reconnect with nature, kids are learning to feel at ease in the wilderness, for many is a challenge to be in the nature without electronic devices. Kids start by dealing with the feelings of nothingness and emptyness that invites them to think about what to do and overcome this unconfortableness and they end up by finding what to do, like helping with fire and getting involved with the activities.
Now during winter is another story, the weather force people to stay inside and do differents things. Last year they had a contract with a School so they were still going to some parks and still doing some outdoor activities. Magdalina also mentions the importance for kids to have some non-structured time and to have the posibility to choose what they want to do, so they explore they capacities and autonomy since nowadays kids have their time too structured with one or other lesson or classes. This year they are not working with that school so they have other activities indoors and they organize arts and crafts in the city, like the sock monsters one.
Their project now requires their energy invested in the new house in east Rhodopi mountain, where they want a garden and a fixed place. For next year, they continue doing summer camps with tents in the mountain and learning about flora and fauna. When I asked her if she had something else to share with people who don’t know what forest school is and why is it worth it, she says that it is very rewarding to spend time with kids close to nature, and keep asking themselves if we are a part of nature or apart from it. Kids are grounded and in nature all emotions come out and emerge, there is place for everything and usually the emotions that come are peaceful. It would be recommended for everyone to give it a try, specially for those who mostly spend our times working indoors and sitting in front of a computer.
Inka invites everyone who would like to become a member of the Forest School to contact them and join because they are willing to expand their network. You can write and email to [email protected] and I am sure they will be happy to hear from you. To listen to the whole conversation with more details please click below:
Next day it was the Sock Monster day. We met Deni who is Inka’s friend and she was the leader of the workshop. We were with around 10 kids who were willing to spend some time indoors while it was snowing outside and we all made a puppet using a sock, some glue and plenty of different materials to let the imagination fly. It was a nice experience to be with them and also a challenge because most of the workshop was happening in Bulgarian so I tried to communicate with them with signs and the few words I already know. Many different monsters were created and we had a lot of fun by making them as ugly as possible.
As an additional activity regarding my volunteering tasks, I have kept working in the construction of a Solidarity Project for The Gates in Dolen. It consists in a project that can be executed for one year with a group of minimum 5 people (18-30 y/o) who are willing to work together with a local community and some of the events would support the development of the place as an educational center for the local people and also with the help and participation of people from the village and all around. As the different activities we have discussed about with Veronika and the people in Dolen, we would organize the reconstruction and recovering of an Ecopath between Kovachevitsa and Dolen, various workshops with natural materials and good practices for the environment, a day to collect garbage in the paths followed by a film projection, and more. We will keep you updated about this. If you haven’t read about Dolen, please check my previous posts and interviews in the blog.
This is all for now, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story and talk to you soon!
Hasta pronto,
Juliana
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