Farní charita Česká Lípa

New Year’s Eve is a day of mixed feelings for many people,it is a time to celebrate the end of the year gone by and welcome what is in store in the New Year.For me it is very special day and I used to celebrate it with my family but this year I celebrated it with other volunteers and also with previous Evs volunteers in Ceska Lipa.First we decided to cook some dishes then,at 9 o’clock ,the party has started.We had champagne,beer,wine and defferent party food.It was interesting day and as we had different New Year traditions I learn a lot of new things, for example in Italy the star of the dinner is lentils, symbolizing money and good fortune for the coming year and at 12 o’clock you need to eat a lot of lentils if you want to have a lot of money for the coming year,,,so I ate more then other hope it will work :).After the dinner we decided to go club and we danced their till 5 o’clock.We were tired but happy J J

During the end of the last year 2016, we volunteers got informed about a workshop, that we were going to have during January 2017. The topic of the workshop was “Cooking our traditional dishes”, together with students from Euroskola. In advance, we all wrote our receipts and were ready for the workshop.

January 4 came pretty soon and now we all 6 were in front of Euroskola to have the cooking workshop. The header of the school, teachers and all students were so friendly and enthusiastic about this cooperation.

So the idea was that we 6 had to represent to Czech students our national cuisine. Each of us had one or 2 assistants to help us preparing our dishes.

After 3 hours, lots of jokes and sharing things about our countries we finished the cooking. We all gathered in a big beautiful room, tasting our dishes and enjoying our time. One by one each of us made a short presentation about respective countries. It was a very nice moment, because we travelled at once in 7 beautiful countries Albania, Armenia, Czech Republic, Georgia, Italy, Spain and Ukraine.

At the end I would like to add that we enjoyed so much this workshop, the food was excellent and the cooperation was great.

Written by Erlinda

One day in Dresden

On 27 of November volunteers of Farni Charita decided to go to Dresden. We firstly bought the tickets which were really affordable and we were so happy for this new adventure. At home we prepared everything we needed like food and drinks.

               After passing Benesov we arrived in Decin and then we took the last train to Dresden. Everybody was so happy. Dresden at first sight was a very modern city, full of high buildings and shopping centers.  After 5 minutes of walking, before us appeared an amazing Christmas market with shinning colors and delicious desserts.

After discovering the market we decided to look at historical part of the city, which was also amazing and breathtaking. Very old and high buildings, surrounding with baroque architecture and also big historical museums. Sometimes we felt like being in Prague, because there were also bridges like Charles Bridge.

I have also to add that weather was good but the temperature was so low. In this way it was necessary to have a coffee or a tea. All together we had coffee and tried some traditional cakes of Dresden. We went back home after 8 hours of walking and enjoying the city. I have also to remind that everybody bought something, and the prices were not that expensive as we thought.

We took plenty of photos, so this experience will stay in our memories for a long time. I really hope to go there again on summer.

At the beginning of September I had a unique experience to be part of Youth exchange in Ceska Lipa. 50 young people came from Armenia, Georgia, Italy, Poland, Russia, Lithuania and Czech Republic. All teams were really friendly and talkative. I learned a lot about their cultures and even learned some words in Armenia, Georgia and Italian.

Especially I liked Music evening where all teams prepared presentation, video or songs from their countries. I decided to take part at this evening too and to prepare mix of the most popular Ukrainian songs. Georgian team were playing guitar and dancing, Russian prepared presentation about their famous compositors and Russian instruments, Armenians were singing the national song, Lithuanians were teaching us the most popular Lithuanian dance and song. Also we were singing Italian karaoke and dancing funny Polish dance.

 After this one week of Youth exchange we all have a lot of good memories and new amazing friends!

Can't believe how fast the summer has gone! It was amazing summer with full of trips and adventures. Have never visited so many countries in such short period: France, Italy, Germany, Hungary.

My last full of emotions trip was to Budapest. We missed our bus back to Prague, because Student agency use the public transport stop not the main bus station. But anyway there was much more of positive emotions. This city is full of special places: Parliament, Central market hall, Cat café, St. Stephen basilica and so on. The night Budapest is amazing. My best memories are connected with meeting sunset on the hill near to Liberty statue (yes, they have it too). That was so magic and incredible atmosphere there, when you can see the whole city and gradual illumination of all objects.

What about food, I opened to myself Arabic cousin and found out that hummus is a really delicious.  Ruin bars and Cat café impressed me by their uniqueness. And ice-cream from the real fruits is very tasty. 

I will definitely come back to Budapest once more to discover more unique places.

Hi everyone, I am Anuka 22 years old, Sociologist from Georgia. I finished university 2 month ago and decided to change something in my life, that’s why I came here. Now I am in the country, where I dreamed to be since childhood, in Czech Republic. My dream come true and now I am here. It’s my first EVS project and I hope it will be perfect. I was given a chance to work with children and because of this I’ very happy. I am really glad, because I really love them and I think working with the is very interesting, impressive and also funny. They are really angels.

The main reason why I am here is that I want to get experience, get a knowledge, improve my skills, also I would like to travel, see other countries, learn how to live independently, meet new people and of course get a new friends. I’m sure my expectations will come true.

It’s already 3 weeks I live in Czech republic. I think it’s enough time to get some conclusions, find differences between these 2 countries, compare Czech Republic and Georgia.

At first I was surprised when I found that here isn’t to many shops and supermarkets. In my city everywhere, in every steps are shops and most of them working 24 hours.

I was surprised when I heard, that pharmacy doesn’t works on weekends and also it doesn’t work 24 hours. In my country all of them working every day and every night.

For me it was very pleasure, when I saw how stopped the cars when I cross the road where is the pedestrian road. It means, that Czech people are very polite. In Georgia it doesn’t works. This is very rare occasion when the driver stops and let me go.

I was surprised,  when I was firstly in the center of the city and there wasn’t people, despite of my country. The roads was empty. In Georgia it is always full of people, especially centers. Also I’ve never seen the traffic jam here and it’s the best thing. In my country it’s impossible to drive, it’s very hard. The road is always full of cars.

At the end, I want to write that here Is very good atmosphere. I feel good here.

I think this is the main things, which was surprised for me.

In September our organisation held a Youth Exchange training. The idea of the project: Active citizenship. People from many different countries came to Ceska Lipa. We had opportunity to interact with people from different countries, learn about their culture, customs and traditions. It's really great, because you gain insight into how people from other cultures view the world, and after you will likely to view your native culture in a different light. It was nice intercultural experience. Also I like how young people by participating in such project can became more self-confident, train new skills in international and informal atmosphere. One day I hope to be part of such training maybe even like a group leader. After seeing how this kind of project work it's not a surprise when participates develop a lasting interest in international and global affairs. I hope with the time more and more young people will want to take part in international projects like this, to learn a new languages, to meet people from all over the world, and so on.

This summer was very productive. I participated in two work camp in Germany. First was a photo project in Berlin. This camp was organised by Nazi Forced Labour Documentation Centre. All participants from different countries was provided with an introduction to the subject of forced labour, photo workshops and guided tours around places and museums that had connection to the topic of forced labour. Our task were to express our new knowledge and feelings in art form though photography. In two weeks of this camp I learned so much, in my opinion this creative and interesting way of learning is really good. To take a good picture you need to concentrate on the topic, sometimes it was really sad and emotional. At the end of the last week we had an exhibition where we invited people who work in the documentation centre and their friends. But even after the exhibition our works were presented there.

My second work camp was held in Gaefelden (near Stuttgart). We work on the Memorial site for a former subcamp of the concentration camp Natzweiler. It was Archaeological work. We cleaned for public the commemorative path, former airfield and place where was the airplane hangar. Also I took part in film workshop and helped to document the work of the group.

This volunteering experience made me think a lot about our history and situation in our world right now. This summer I had meet the nicest and really motivated educators and I want to be able in the future be like them and do something with as much love and interest as them. I recommend to everyone to take part in work camp because it's really inspiring experience.