Doduhy blogspot RULezz

Welcome!

This is the Doduhy 2007 blog. We were a group of volunteers in Czech Republic in the Summer 2007 working with the children and youth organization Duha.



I am Joao Pes, I lived in Praha before the Doduhy project started. In February 2007 I came to my EVS (European Volunteer Service) in Praha, Czech Republic, also organizing and preparing “Reach the Rainbow/ Doduhy” project.
Until the Summer arrival of the Doduhy volunteers, I worked in the Duha central office in Praha with Pedro Henriques, Zoryana, Alena Capová, Hanka, Martin Triska; the Duha Local groups across Czech Repulic ; the international umbrella organization IYNF.


We were in the rush of receiving in Praha the first EVS group project in the organisation (and in the Country) and thinking creative into including our volunteers into the 5 of the 92 czech local groups of Duha (page in czech). The Doduhy gang arrived from 7 different countries in two days. Receiving them was the Duha gang and some spontaneous volunteers: Tatev Mkrtchyan, fellow EVS at the time; Alejandro and Cem, hospitality club travellers.




Different experiences
We learned a lot from the first days! The Doduhy volunteers got spread through Czech and Germany in different activities for Summer 2007:

Many Duha clubs have SummerCamps around Czech Republic. Irina and Alfie for sure noticed it with the big Duha Dlazka. Gosia and Gigi were working in different camps, while Irina and Alfonso were always together. Later, Irina described her experience as a diary in her way to the golden moments. Alfie enjoyed many moments and got really surprised when he saw his italian pasta being cooked with sugar!

Valentina went for International Summercamps with Duha I-KLUB. She was with Mister G in this local group in different camps around Czech Republic and Germany. Vale was our media wiz, with pictures and movie making and she used it to show what are these camps about. On other I-KLUB camps were Mister G and Sarka Bambosová the dancing czech teacher. After being with the Doduhy gang and “good boy” G, Sha wrote to us about it.

Duha has all these camps, but also many indoor activities, with the different open clubs. Kids like video-games and watching japonese anime in TV. What would they do inside a club? Our dear Kasia her hands dirty to get some answers.

Just next door to Duha are the International Young Nature Friends (IYNF), were Nada spent two months. She got to work in the office and participate with me into Meet the Freak !!!, as she explained everyone.

All of us, Reach the Rainbow volunteers were in different places for two months. We got together for our trainings, two Duha workcamps and some special weekends.
Stepan Zelinger is also a guy that likes to spend his weekends in a bit different way... He told us how it was to have more international volunteers in the TAMJDEM active weekends.


If you have any question or something that you want to share post it here in the forum, send us an email to doduhy@gmail.com or find us on-line! :)

Have fun!
Joao Pes
skype: joao.pes
e-mail: cao.joao@gmail.com

Seven Camps, Eight Weeks

Diary of EVS in Duha Local Group Dlažka

I have been an EVS volunteer for 4 months in DUHA organisation, at Czech Republic. My project had 2 parts. The first one was for 2 months in the Local Group Dlažka, Přerov - a small city in Moravia. There I participated in 7 camps for 8 weeks.

My first camp took place in Rajnochovice between 9th and 15 th of July 2007. It was a camp for school students and some of them were from social houses. The name of this camp was “Under the Mexican sun”. The weather was rainy for 3 days and the children could only play indoor games.

Later when the weather was already good we started to organize different games in the forest. One day we went for a trip to Zoo Zlin – Lesna (it is a castle). It was a beautiful place, the biggest zoo in Moravia.


The second camp began on 16 th until the 21 th of July 2007. This one was Czech-Danish Sport camp, for families with their children. I learnt to play one Czech Game – Ringo and I liked this Game. There were different competitions organized every day as well as trips with bicycles. In this camp we went for a trip to Kroměřiš. Very nice place, and castle with beautiful gardens.


The third camp began on 23th until the 29th of July. Its name was “Bahia muzika mia” and was organized for families with children. There were games every morning in the forest for the children. The games for the parents took place in the afternoon. One day we played a night game and the End of this game was in one pub with a beer for free.

After these tree weeks I had to change my place. From Rajnochovice I went to Buchlovice.


The fourth camp was between 30th of July and 05th August 2007, called “Harry Potter”. The camp was only for children between 10 and 14 years old. It was the best camp I had ever since the beginning of my project – full of nice people, great environment and so many funny moments. During the camp I went for Trip to Buchlovice. In the day we arrived started the Garlik Festival in Buchlovice castle. It was very strange for me to see peacocks, these beautifull birds, just sitting on the trees. It was the time when we went to Koričani because there was a swimming pool there.



I participated in the fifth camp from 6th of August 2007 to 19th of August 2007. It was called „Shrek“ and was full of very interesting games. But for me, this camp was not so interesting as I was sick during some time and for me 2 weeks with the same people was a little bit boring.


The sixth camp, started on 20th of August and finished on 24th of August. The Name was „The Secret Island“. Very nice camp, a lot of people, most of the games were with a lot of running because the mission of every camp was to get the children tired. I finished on 24th of August as I had a special trip to Krakow.


The sevent camp started on 27th of August and finished on the second of September 2007. This was the Last camp for Children because on 3th of September they start the school. It was a very hard program for a last camp. The children were between 13-18 years. There were more sport games. Once in the middle of the night we woke up all the children at 12 a.m. and gave them a special present – a bottle from Dlažka.

After 7 camps and 8 weeks in the forest or in the jungle I just want to say that it was Great… a time full of funny moments. I will never forget these children`s eyes looking at me full of questions. This is a Golden Moment in my EVS, and in my life. I will save this moment in my heart as I want to say to everybody when I go back to Bulgaria how many Golden moments I had in the Czech Republic.

Irina

Trifidi, Pasta and Sugar!

Experience in Czech Republic Duha Summercamps

I´m the right man to talk about summer camps for children and young people in Czeck Repubblic. During my first two mounths of EVS I was in 8 different summer camps of Dlažka, a very active local group of Duha. Club Dlažka organizes every summer a lot of camps for children, young people and also for adults. It´ s not so difficult imagine that this kind of camp is very funny for their participants, because there they can meet new friends and play many games and sports. My own experience confirms that this is true. I met many people every week and I worked in contact with many children of every age. I was with them for a lot of funny and crazy games like  for example trifidi, a game that we played with eyes closed in the forest….  try to imagine the madness of this game.

I learned some new sports for me like ringo and softball, even if I liked play expecially football, the only one game that I can play well( of course, I´m italian). These camps are important not only for the fun but also for the fact that the children learn to socialize. For 1 or 2 weeks they live alone without parents and for a lot of them this experience is very exciting.

In my camps I met not only children but also many young people that every summer works with Dlažka. I was really happy to meet all that people, expecially the girls… All that people were very important for me during all my permanence in the camps to comunicate and to express all my sensations and impressions about my experience. They taught me the few czeck words that I know, and if now I can order something when I go to the pubs, is thanks to them.


Certainly for me not everything was so good and interesting as I just said. I was in two different places in Moravia, Rajnochovice and Buchlovice. These places are perfect for the summer camps, very good to play and to have fun but also very far from the civilization, without internet and sometimes without connection for the mobile telephone. The children don´t care about this, but for me of course was different. Besides it was  not so simple for an italian man like me, get accustomed to eat the food in these camps. For example I never tried in my life, before this summer, pasta with sugar, a meal that in this country children loves. I’m honest: I consider past with sugar a very disgusting meal !!!!!!!!.


However, even if you can find pasta with sugar, every summer these camps in Czeck Republic are full of persons who are in those places not just for fun, but also to grow up.

Alfie

Daily activity of a Duha Local Group

What can children do after school instead of watching TV and playing computer games? They can go to Duha’s open club and spend their free time in a creative way! But what can they do in a club like this?

Amongst other things they can learn pottery. All children like having dirty hands and have great fun creating fancy objects out of clay and finally painting them. They can also play board games, ping pong and other interesting and captivating games in our daily clubs.

We also have a centre for socially disadvantaged children. This centre offers help for children with learning difficulties, and also offers assistance with homework alongside courses in music, dancing and computer skills.

Many local groups organize attractive trips. There are opportunities to go climbing in the mountains, cycling, hiking or having picnics in the countryside... These trips offer an excellent opportunity to be close to nature, discover new and beautiful places in the Czech Republic and enjoy time with friends.

Duha organizes activities not only for children. Parents are also welcome to participate in Duha’s life. We run a project called Baby English where children between the age 2-7 years old can meet once a week accompanied by their mothers to learn English together. The main activity is singing simple songs whilst showing some gestures, repeating some epigrams or drawing. All methods are interactive, involving both sides mother and child.


Kasia was a EVS in Duha WINGS, a local group of Duha in Ostrava

The International Young Nature Friends

During my four months E.V.S., I reached/joined/visited both the Duha office and its international level, I.Y.N.F., in Prague. These two organizations are intimately linked: they act in the same direction, they share some values and make activities to encourage young people’s self-development. But they have some specific needs, target groups and ways of working, which makes them different. Duha and the other national organizations spread out in European countries must have an upper level that can coordinate them: this is the role of I.Y.N.F.



Together, Duha and I.Y.N.F. organise Meet the Freak project. It is a totally surrealistic festival in which sixty young people from all around Europe live together for two weeks and improve their skills in various artistic areas (dance, DJ-ing, juggling, theatre, …). At the end of the camp, some performances workshops are proposed with the main idea of interacting with the local population. If you are full of positive energy and if you feel like developing your freaky ideas, Meet the Freak is for you!


Once you are a member of I.Y.N.F., you can take part in activities, in different areas such as art, outdoor or environment. You can choose to participate to the camps and if you feel like being more involved in I.Y.N.F. You can even join some leaders and organize a camp, build up your own idea and share your skills with young people. You will then get a great overview of the way some local organizations can act together.

Nada

Tamjdem

The weekend in Yanderov was part of a series of volunteering expeditions called „Tamjdem“. Initiated by Duha-VTS, these weekends serve as an experimental ground for those who want to help, as well as to make their first steps from participating to organising volunteer events.



This time, we had very special guests: „Reach the Rainbow“ volunteers came to join us for the music festival at Yanderov (6-7 July 2007). Challenging tasks awaited us: drafting beer, cleaning up the festival field, etc.!


Despite the noise, despite our mutant tent and recurrent chaotic moments, it turned out to be a great opportunity for worlds to meet. Czech volunteers met volunteers from abroad (and vice versa). Portuguese and other ways of drafting beer met the Czech „foam it up“ way of drafting. Local NGO leaders met all of us „free-floating“ volunteers. Generations mixed up. Languages mixed up.

The purpose of the weekend - to open doors between worlds - was met as well as ever. Forming a mixed group of Czech and foreign volunteers would not do the trick by itself – crucial is the opportunity to work on something useful together. Equally important is to meet people who do voluntary work over the long term on a local level – and for them, having foreign visitors can be a very invigorating experience! And what better way to visit is there than to give a helping hand…

We may not have been as fast, confident and refined behind the beer counter as the usual service. Sometimes, the queues got a little longer. But the word about „the exotic foreigners“, these „Rainbow people“ who like to chat, went around with lightning speed. and tried their best at practicing international understanding.

After Yanderov experience, the „Rainbow people“ reached some other Tamjdem weekends!

See more about TAMJDEM
here!

Stepan Zelinger

My Experience with Reach the Rainbow

My name is Šárka and I´m a member of Duha I-club. In the Doduhy project I had a role of Czech teacher and tutor.


I supposed the summer 2007 would be a bit grey for me because of big exam at the end of it and all the preparation I planned differently, but then I got the chance to teach Czech to EVS volunteers coming to Duha. I taught a group of wonderful motivated students and it was a big pleasure for me to bring them something from my language. It was my first experience with teaching Czech for foreign people and I can say I really liked it. The „official“ part of the project was a big motivation for my future life.

But I don´t want to talk about officialities. Above at all those EVS volunteers, my students, became very good friends of mine and they have made my summer really colourful. Normally I wouldn´t like things like tiredness, insomnia and lack of confort, but suddenly I could enjoy them. As some people say every voluntary work can turn to “big bordel” at one point. But probably this is one of the most important reasons to do it – if you manage to handle this mess some of your usual personal problems become less valuable and you open your eyes for problems of other people and problems in the society.

Our first common experience was at music festival Yanderov in Chrudim. We were helping with collecting rubish, tapping the beer and other organizational tasks of the festival and we were having much fun with the TAMJDEM Group Project.

After this weekend volunteers joined their local organizations, but the group didn´t split. We kept on visiting each other.

My local organisation Duha I-club was hosting Valentina and Mister G. Me and my friends we sharing the role of mentors and we were prepared to give them a helping hand. Their helping hand for the I-club was much bigger than ours to them. They were leading some of our childer summer camps and Mister G created the new beatiful design of our web (www.iclub-online.org). I also went with him to lead one of our camps in Germany by the Baltic Sea. Mister G helped me a lot. I would like to thank him this way once more, cause leading of the group with big differencies between members wasn´t really easy and he was more than just another leader of the camp. He had the different point of view “from outside”, which was useful for us and helped us to solve the problems quicker.

Mister G


Now I feel every other camp without EVS volunteer will miss something important...

One of the sences of EVS is to look in the future of common Europe. I´m glad I could experience something, that made me feel this thought really and not just like an empty phrase from newspaper. Especially at our “girl trip” to Krakow and Oswiecim. The flash look back into the past made me much more thankful for the present Europe I´m living in and made me think about the projects from one more point of view.

In September we met in Prague again. We were helping at another Tamjdem weekend - at theatre and music festival Babí léto. The main part of the theatre groups were homeless groups. They played really profesional and the theatre in their presentation became another dimension. Babí léto means Indian summer. It was also a symbolical dot after this fantastic summer. Colours of the rainbow were in the trees and in the faces of the people. Greyness didn´t have any chance. Unfortunately it was the last time for me, on that I could reach the rainbow.
I left to experience Europe as a student at a university abroad. This won´t be my last time with EVS. You motivated me to apply for it in the next years. Thank you for everything!!!
Sarka