Last month I had the opportunity to attend a Red Cross international Peace Camp at Vogelsang IP in the Eifel National Park, Germany. There I discovered an important place where you are encouraged to both reflect on the past and built a postiive future. This article explains the history of this unique site.

Hey, do you volunteer at European Solidarity Corps (European Voluntary Service) and your project is coming to an end? Would you like to continue and stay in touch with volunteering but you don’t know how have no time to check or just don’t know where to find opportunities? Down below I prepared a list of more and less known organizations, opportunities and platforms that can help you find your perfect next project in Europe and worldwide. Because volunteering is just beautiful!

With the progress of democracy the concept of activism is more and more often mentioned in the media space. You can find characteristic «public activist» in biographies of many public figures (artists, journalists, writers etc.). Even those who don’t take to the streets to protest and instead post on Facebook become activists. In this article I try to figure out what «activism» means and which easiest methods of activism exist in the 21st century.

The Austrian music group "Bilderbuch" impresses with an unusual promo action and is a great example for a band that is neither Austrian nor German-speaking but simply EUROPEAN.

We’ve all experienced difficulties when communicating with others. That can be especially a problem while volunteering or working in a foreign country where you maybe don’t speak their language perfectly and therefore it can be a challenge knowing how to best express your thoughts and opinions without being misunderstood, ignored, create a negative atmosphere or a verbal fight. We are going to explain 4 communication styles that people mostly use in their daily life. These are: aggressive, passive, passive-aggressive and assertive communication style and tell which one is the best to use in your daily life.

As the participant of the Erasmus + youth-mobility project of non-formal education, I questioned myself – how can we measure quality of my mobility project, or any mobility project and activity I am going to organize and participate in? Which criteria should I use to prepare and evaluate any youth-mobility project - if it is productive, meaningful and well-organized? From 22 - 24 July, 2019, I took a part in the training in Budapest, which was dedicated to the two new tools, created to use and increase quality in mobility.

So many things happened to me during my ESK, but this part of intercultural communication, meeting people from different countries, religious, cultural backgrounds, making new friends, breaking cultural stereotypes – were one of the best things during my volunteering year in Germany, which I will always be grateful for.

I still remember reading Elizabeth Gilbert Eat Pray Love book, where she describes her journey to Italy, India, and Bali. My favorite part was India where she lives in an ashram and learns how to meditate. That story inspired me (and many others) to try to get into my first meditation session. But meditation and its benefits were well-known way before all the modern world heard about it.

Have you ever had this bittersweet feeling about something you were working for so long, and after it is done and over, you cannot believe that it is finally happened. I have these feelings about my youth-exchange in Germany, Eurocamp 2019.

I have changed my place of residence a couple of times for the last 5 years. In October 2018 I moved from Ukraine to Germany to start my voluntary service. And while I was packing my luggage, I realized something important: everything I need for existence can actually be placed in one suitcase. I came to the conclusion that getting rid of unnecessary items makes me more mobile, economical, more eco-friendly and gives me a great sense of ease.

We are all somehow connected to the world of sports. We do it professionally, as amateurs, watch it on TV or go to stadiums or sport venues to support our favorite sport team or an athlete.

The technology was meant to be the one which helps us to do things faster, better and easier in one word to be more productive. But these distractions aren’t just unproductive, they’re anti-productive. They create more work than they replace because due to our non-stop distraction we need much more time to finish the task we set to do. Also, with so much offer on Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Facebook it’s really hard to decide on which kind of content should we focus on-and also stay focused. Ultimately, entertaining and not useful information gets us addicted because it is pleasing, easy and it numbs a lot of our day-to-day stresses and insecurities. The same way the consumer economy of the 20th century called upon us to invent the nutritional diet, authors believe that the attention economy of the 21st century calls upon us to invent an attention diet.

I will never stop being amazed by the two things. First, how strong and powerful can be a human, a human body and a human brain. The second, how drastically can sport impact on a human being.

Volunteering