Youth exchange "Catch the Opportunity!" takes place from 7-17th July 2011 in Hiiumaa and brings together 32 participants from Estonia, Lithuania, Romania, Turkey, Spain and France. The main topics of the project are youth unemployment and voluntary work.

Tuesday, July 12, 2011

Volunteering at Kuulikodu



The second group who climbed off the bus was the one to go to do their volunteering work in Harju. Harju is a village in Hiiumaa that is special for Kuulikodu, the only animal shelter on the whole island. Kuulikodu is a NGO that offers home for abandoned animals, organizes different training courses and lectures and takes care of local animal protection issues. When our group arrived there, we got warm greetings from Kadri, the caretaker of Kuulikodu. At first Kadri invited us inside her house, where we all sat down in a cozy living room and introduced ourselves, the project and our mission there. Kadri also talked a bit about herself and the essence of Kuulikodu in general.


After the introduction part our voluntary work started. The task for the day was to help Kadri to prepare the household for winter by carrying cut-down logs of wood from the forest to the collecting place near the house. It wasn’t too difficult and we had fun creating different ways, how to make our work more effective and faster. By cooperating and dividing tasks we managed to finish working at the first pile of logs quite fast. However, our work there was far from being done yet!





After eating delicious vegetarian lunch that Kadri had prepared for us, we continued with working. This time we decided to divide our group into two: boys and girls. Originally boys were supposed to carry big heavy logs out from the woods by themselves and girls at the same time were supposed to carry on with lighter work; however soon the group was united again as together the work was just so much easier! By working together, we were soon out of work again, so we took another brake to collect our strength… or to be quite honest, because those logs were HEAVY! So, exhausted, we sat down with Kadri once again just to relax a bit, play with lovely kittens and dog and just to chat. After the break, Kadri took us to a field to pick some herbs. We examined different plants and Kadri introduced us different possibilities of their usage. When we eventually arrived back with some flowers and herbs, it was time to leave. We said farewell to Kadri and to the animals and got into the bus, which took us back to Kalana.



Everybody was very pleased that they had decided to volunteer in Kuulikodu, because all the positive feedback we got from Kadri was absolutely amazing and her gratitude was endless, even though we didn’t do so much at all! We all went back with such positive emotions and a feeling that volunteering is really worth an effort!



By: Greete

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