What challenge inspired this recipe?
ESC project lasting 6-12 months gives a good time to contribute to environmental sustainability of the country of service. It is not only to practice sustainable lifestyle at your daily living, but also to contribute with your voluntary efforts and time to some projects. EstYES gives such possibility to ESC volunteers we coordinate around Estonia in cooperation with our Workcamps partners.
Ingredients :
EstYES Workcamps Program
Step by step guide
As we cooperate with Food Bank in Tallinn (which used to be one of our hosting projects) we engage our contact to explain volunteers how to avoid food waste but save food by using products which are near to expire. Food Bank also gives overview of common people living standards in Estonia and provides statistics about people in need. After this presentation ESC volunteers are invited to give a practical to help there by preparing packages to be distributed to people and families in needs. This is a very simple but very much needed work and volunteers are usually happy to work a bot physically to help out.
Another way of direct contribution to nature protection and sustainability is to join working weekends/ actions for protection of endangered species or removing invasive plants or restoring natural landscape with Estonian Nature Fund which is our good cooperation partner for Workcamps and other actions. This opportunity is offered to ESC volunteers occasionally. Besides working for nature it also gives a great chance to meet local people and make new friends while working.
In addition to this, all ESC volunteers are invited to join our Workcamps taking place at eco-farms to get an experience of sustainable lifestyle in rural areas and to give a hand to hard working Estonian farmers. Since camps take place in summer, it is only suitable for volunteers who stay on project long enough. Also this engagement should not compromise formal ESC service on hosting project. Therefor it is better to use days off.
Important to highlight!There are plenty of opportunities around to make ESC period more diverse and dynamic. We just have to keep our eyes open, be creative and think out of box. As voluntary service organisations we have all means to build wonderful synergies between ESC and Workcamps, long- and short-term volunteering, being participant in the beginning and then a group leader, hosting ESC project and then Workcamp (or another way around) at the same venue/ institution and generally networking our local partners. This is something to be explored further. |
Before you start cooking, keep in mind…
Volunteers often do not have time to join such actions or are not motivated enough by us. We should definitely spent more time promoting existing opportunities and be more active creating new ones for them.
