The first half of my EVS-time

After four months of being an EVS-Volunteer the half of my overall EVS-time is over. So far I have taken part of five PRAXIS-campaigns and I had the opportunity to improve a lot of my skills.

The first campaign I took part was the “Cleaning Lake Kerkini”-Campaign, for which we PRAXIS-Volunteers cleaned – together with some school classes – the big storage lake Kerkini which is placed near to Serres. We also documented the cleaning to present it later in the internet.

There was a Free-Goal-Event at the central Elefterias Square in Serres during the Football Against Racism in Europe (=FARE) Actionweek. While this event was going on, we PRAXIS-Volunteers held an exhibition at the same place to give some information about the subject of racism in football to the people.

Also a big thing was the Eco-Conference which PRAXIS organized and which we PRAXIS-volunteers were helping to organize. But in contrast to the other campaigns we did not had a leading job at the Eco-Conference.

At the beginning of December we took part of the worldwide AIDS-campaign related to the World-Aids-Day. For this campaign and also – later – for the Human-Rights-Campaign we PRAXIS-volunteers held self-made exhibitions at Elefterias Square in Serres, created movies, did radio shows and – of course – created radio spots related to our radio shows.

However, this is not everything I did during these four months.

In opposite to the campaigns we took part of we had also some work to do which was more “every-day-work-like”. This includes updating websites which are owned and hold by PRAXIS or – for example – creating invitations for different events, creating logos and blogging. We also were responsible for the sound-management of the daily held PRAXIS-radio show.

For this reason I improved my personal skills in a lot of fields: I improved my skills related to layouting – e.g. posters, logos, invitations – with Adobe Photoshop or InDesign and related to website-editing with Adobe Dreamweaver. I learned how to do the sound management for a radio show and how to make a radio spot or a radio show with the computer-program Cubase. We also had Greek-language-lessons in which we learned the basics of Greek language. But more than learning Greek I improved my English-language skills during my all-day-life with my flat-lads.

And during working with them, but also with greek volunteers, I learnt more about teamwork and organization and coordinating of campaigns and events.

Striking in Greece!

As you may or may not know farmers throughout Greece have been blocking main roads throughout all of Greece as a protest against the government. The reason for this is because the farmers are getting low prices for produce such as corn, wheat and cotton which is ruining their lives. This even affected us here in Serres as we needed to be in Athens for our Mid-Term Evaluation on the 22nd. The only guaranteed way of getting there was by train, and I don't know if you are aware of Greek trains but the can be VERY slow!

 Luckily, however, we managed to book a fast(ish) train at...MIDNIGHT! But despite this we arrived in Athens safely. Now the way back is a whole different story! The blocks had gotten worse and nearly everyone is getting the train to move around Greece. This meant that we didn't know exactly when we would be able to get home. The others who have their EVS Projects in North Greece, including us had to stay in our hotel until the National Agency managed to book us a ticket.

 Fortunately we had a train the next day at... MIDNIGHT! Deja vu anyone? While it may sound as if I'm joking about it you can see the serious side. Loads of people are rushing and have no idea what is happening. It just goes to show that just by blocking roads with tractors can send the whole country into dissarray. The most recent event is that roads to Bulgaria have been blocked and lorry drivers fear their goods will spoil.


 Bulgaria has asked the European Commission to intervene as its hauliers are losing money and demand to have a passage opened. Bulgaria's main road transport association, Basat, says it will sue the Greek state. It's estimated that by Saturday the blocks have caused Bulgaria losses of nearly 10 million Euros.

 The length of this protest is yet unknown as the farmers' leaders say they do not intend to stop their protest until the government meets all their demands. Greek Agriculture Minister Sotiris Hatzigakis offered 500million Euros and insisted the state could not afford to pay any more. But the farmers turned the offer down as they feel this is too little and also want fixed  subsidies for the future.

Marcus.

Hey mandudes and girldudes.

It’s been a while since we wrote something here. But better late then never, right?

As you might know, or not know, we have had a Human Rights Campaign. This campaign involved making a radio spot, a radio-show, making a short film and having an exhibition. It was going pretty well, until it came to the exhibition. We were suppose to have it the 10^th of December, but due to the riots that was going on in Greece at the moment, we might have met resistance and our exhibition could have been vandalized. So we cancelled it for the moment. Instead we planned to have it alongside our Migrants Day exhibition. But then we faced another problem. The weather…

The rain was pouring down in Biblical proportions, which made it hard to even stand outside for two minutes without getting a cold. So we had to wait again.

After some weeks, it seemed as though we wouldn’t be able to do a exhibition at all.

But then our bosses told us that there was this thing at a school in town, where we could put up some information at least. So we went there. But since they already had most of the information we brought, it wasn’t that much we could do.

So we put up our information, and then we helped the teachers to fill folders with various information and facts that the kids would get. After that we got some coffee. There weren’t very much more to do, so after the coffee and two cigarettes we went home.

It wasn’t really the most extravagant campaign ever, but at least it was something.

As long as you do something, right?

Hopefully our next campaign will be better.