Implementing the Culture of Peace through the
environment
Let’s experience the beauty of our differences
and the wonders of nature
29th April-4th May 2003,
Pécs, Hungary
It is the second time that local students, youngsters, CARP representatives also from foreign countries came together in Pécs to do volunteer work. At that time 20 young people were present. We went into the forest on the hill Mecsek and we did a lot of different kinds of job in a popular outing place near the zoo. The official expert on the field was a young forester who sacrificed his 3-day-holyday for the project but he did not regret. On the last day he even cooked for us a real “forester gulyás”.
Because of the length of the camp we had only one-day orientation. We shared information about ourselves, discussed different topics concerning the theme of the camp in teams, we had games, and we practised different ways of communication.
“I felt it really broke the ice between the different people here and that people were more free to talk to each other after that.”
In the late afternoon we went into the city for a public lecture: Sculptors of ourselves (about character development). After the dinner we created the final teams, the names and their goals. The teams were: the Green Embrace, the Cocktail, and the Shooting Stars.
Every morning one of the teams gave the so called motto, the morning inspiration, something we could concentrate on all day and we could reflect on it at the end of the day.
On the next day we started the work. Going up to the hill on foot (it seemed a little bit the beginning of our suffering hard work) we arrived to our “own area” Later we realised that these works were not so hard and it was more fun and learning. These days were holidays because of the 1st May (the Day of Work) and the weekend so many families, young people came there to relax, have fun and for excursions.
The Green Embrace received the job: painting one little hut with brown colour (first make the surface smooth), painting benches and garbage collectors. The Cocktail did the same job with another small house, the Shooting Stars started to work on a gymnastic track (long path through the forest) and painted all the gymnastic tools they found at the different stations. They continued this job during all the three days. They could develop the most persevering mind and gained the greatest victory in the end. The others received also different tasks during the three days: setting up garbage collectors by digging into the soil, cleaning fireplaces and painting the benches near the zoo. We also collected garbage, which was a huge amount especially after the 1st May “celebrations”.
One evening’s program was two introductions about IRFF through slides and about CARP with the help of some songs. Than a brilliant guitarist came who played in many different styles and made our newly discovered musician: Wildor, accompany him. Good result.
On the third evening Dr Tamás Földesi, professor in law and ethics spoke about war and peace in ethical, humanitarian, humanistic and religious viewpoints. It made also the wheels of our minds move intently. It was very useful.
On Saturday afternoon all of us reflected mainly for ourselves but also the staff and organisers can learn from them. We reflected upon our own achievements, developments and external things, suggestions also. On the evening we had “family evening” when each team prepared with some amusing performance to create a nice homely atmosphere. The Green Embrace showed some instructive story from the life of a farm. The Shooting Stars set up a complete quiz with lot of excitement. It was very professional. In the end the Cocktail gave a “cocktail party” with songs, nice juice cocktails, tiny bits of epicures.…..and came the cake on the top.
On Sunday morning everyone received his/her certification made some official photos and slowly we said tearful good-buy to each other.
It was a short but very concentrated camp with each moment of value.
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Some extractions of the participants’ reflections:
“I can understand a lot more about nature after this project and how to take care of your “own” home, it my and everyone’s own initiative responsibility. I also discovered more deeply the value of human and that what we can do is actually everything.”
“What I have learned and I need to learn again and again that I should not stick to doing things only by myself. We are one team we should manage the things together.”
“A positive point for me is that I could make new friend and at least spoke to everyone. I think that is something great to achieve in six days and an improvement for me."
“I thought about only that I can do something for the people for the nature and the life will be friendlier and I can help. It is very-very good feeling.”
“……it was a good training for loving unconditionally and also for dealing with different characters and working together, making effort to understand and communicate with each other.”
IRFF-CAMP Gallery
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It is nice when the garbage collector regained it’s original colour |
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| Family evening: a cow | |||
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Report from Wildor (a Participant)
Pécs, 2003 29 April - 04 May
up
Pécs is a beautiful little city located in the South of Hungary. It is considered to be a very mediterranean zone.
We arrived on a warm breezed afternoon.
Before long we got to meet the other participants for the project. Altogether a groop of 20 internatonal people from as far as Japan, England, Italy, Germany and France to as near as Romania and of course Hungary itself.
The motto for those few days to come was: “recognise the beauty of our differences and the wondwrs of nature”. We also had a daily motto, which was introduced with the morning inspiration given by a different team every morning. We included internal guidance in the inspiration as well as educational games with hidden meanings behind and songs. All 3 teams managed to lift up the atmosphere and pick up the participants’ spirit every morning, and as we were 3 teams, we also had team names. One was called “Shooting stars”, the other “Green embrace” and the 3rd “Cocktail”. This was my team, also the team I had to lead, which was an unexpected surprise for me but turned out to be a special time for me as well.
Activities that we did in our teams reached many vast levels of character development works as well as group discussions.
The main part of the project, not to be forgotten, was the help that we could bring to the nature, our home.
We marched a 20 min walk every morning up the hill and through the forest where we encountered snakes quite often and all kinds of different creeps.
Our work was to be done on a clearing sight up n the forest and painting was our main job. We painted picknick-huts, benches, trash cans and basically renewed a lot of the area. We picked up garbage as it is an activity in service projects that you almost never miss out on.
My team had a very interesting time on the second day because we were brought on a “safari” ride to a place where we digged up holes in order to plant trash cans, and as a bonus experience we got to know very nice people to whom we gave a very good and examlary impression. For some of us that day ended finding four-leaf clovers.
I believe that through everyone’s work we all felt very attached to the place we so neatly restored with our own hands. It also changed many of our ways of thinking about nature and even people, each other. I believe it really set our humanistic values higher based on deeper principles.
As a few special treats we had the best guitar player in South Hungary come to performe his master work for us, and we received a very wise talk from the Ambassador of Peace, who taught us a lot more about human values.
The camp ended off with everyone performing something from their heart during our family evening on the last day.
Throughout the camp many friendships were developed and many new friendships were found, which made it a very difficult part on the day of departure, the D-day.
My final words are that I’m looking forward for this year to pass by quickly.
Copyright (c) 2003 IRFF Europe
Luxembourg@irff-europe.org