Camp Village Bergheim 1 –TogeZer, KidZ & TeenZ

CODE: IBG ESC02

Work:

Come and volunteer in a summer village for different (age) groups! Over 2 weeks of various activities await you while you assist in a summer camp for children, teenagers and young families near Cologne! The summer village officially opens on the 13th of July. Prior to that, the local team has already built up the infrastructure of the area. All the tents, sanitary facilities and common areas are mostly set up on your arrival the day before the official opening. You might be asked to lend a hand in the very final stages of preparation.

Your job then will be to work together with the local team and provide different types of activities and workshops for the participants. The children should be able to try out different types of sport, creative (group) activities, do arts and crafting or simply chill or play games. In the first week (TogeZer 14.-18.7.) the participants are children and young people with or without mental disabilities. The young people might be older (up to 18), but the developmental age is up to 12. For this week the team is also supported by professionals from an NGO working with people with disabilities and integration assistants.

In the second week (KidZ 21.-26.7.) the program caters for children aged 7 to 12. The third week (TeenZ 27.7.-01.8.) consists of a program for teenagers.

Aside from helping with the program, there will also be “backstage” tasks, such as taking shifts in the “bar” or cleaning the sanitary facilities. Another responsibility is the night duty: Since the participants are under-age, someone always needs to stay awake. Don’t worry, you won’t need to stay up the whole night and you won’t need to do it alone. It can easily turn into a nice long campfire-evening with friends. It is very important to the local team that you feel and become part of one big group of teamers.

Accomodation and food

You will sleep in big group tents on the camp village site. Camp mats will be provided, but please bring your own sleeping bag! There are showers and sanitary facilities available, but the accommodation itself is quite basic. There will be no need for cooking since you will be eating together with the local team and the participants, so everything will be provided, but of course it is expected that you may help with cleaning and so on. You can get a glimpse of the project area on the homepage of the association, where you can find pictures from the previous years: https://www.woanders.org/fotos/

Location and leisure

The camp village is situated on a meadow surrounded by trees a bit outside of the town of Bergheim. In Bergheim, you can find different shops and cafés, and Bergheim itself is only 20km away from Cologne. On your days off you can therefore visit Cologne, which is the fourth most populous city of Germany, famous for its cathedral and the Roman-Germanic museum. You can also go on trips to other nearby towns, for example to Bonn.

Project hosted by

Woanders e.V. is a non-profit organization which wants to reach people of all ages, support cross-generational interaction and contact between people from different areas of life. Their work intends to reduce fear of contact and support tolerance and curiosity for other people, by strengthening the team-spirit “We”. Each summer for over a month, they organize a camping village full of activities for different age groups. This year the program starts with a week dedicated to children and young people with or without mental disabilities. The young people might be older (up to 18), but the developmental age is up to 12. The next week contains a kids-program for children aged 7 to 12, which is followed by a week of camping for teenagers (12-15 years old) which ends in long weekend for adolescents (14+). (After the end of this project the program does continue with a second week of camping for children, followed by a week for families and finally the dismantling of the whore area until next year. The second group of volunteers is arriving on the 1st of August you will help in facilitating their arrival phase.)

You can find the camp village schedule here: www.woanders.org/zeltstadt/

Participants usually stay there for a full week, most of them will stay overnight in tents and have their meals there as well. It is a project aimed mostly towards children and teens with fewer opportunities but it is open to people from all backgrounds. Priority is given to participants from nearby communities. Since 2020 we successfully support this project with small groups of international volunteers and the local team is looking forward to meet new international friends. By volunteering in this project, you are contributing to a sustainable and inclusive community (UN SDG 11).

Directions to meeting point

You have to arrive in Paffendorf train station. Please check for connections from anywhere to Paffendorf www.bahn.com/en. From there it is only a 15 minute walk to the camp village. There will be someone waiting to accompany you.

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