Provide Summer Camps for 500 Youth in Transylvania

Here in the small town of Miercurea Ciuc, winter is the longest and coldest season of the year. As we live in the valley, the fog also tends to stick with us for weeks. People retreat to their homes, social activities are scarce.  Before Christmas we participate in charity actions that offer Christmas presents for kids in need and we visit the after school clubs in the surrounding villages and give presents to the children. Sadly no white Christmas this year, it is an unusually warm and dry winter, so the three week winter break didn't offer many possiblities of fun our-door activities for children. We decided to take advantage of the quiet periode around the holidays and organised a mini winter camp in our office for a children's home in a nearby village, called Frumoasa. The camp was facilitated by an American and a local volunteer and 6 children attended every day for 5 days. It was really successful, full with fun activites in English. 

This time is also a time of reflection and we feel very greatful for everyone who helped us achieve so much in the last year. With the 18 camps we facilitated last year we were able to provide quality activities for more than 500 children in the area, coming from a disadvantaged socio-economical and geographical backround, who otherwise would not have the possibility for any learning and social activities outside school.  

It is time also to thank our wonderful local volunteers for helping us in running these camps, translating between the foreign volunteers and the children, coming up with new ideas and facilitating the activities. Without them it would be impossible to organise the camps. We organised a volunteer meeting in January, where we invited all the volunteers who were active in 2019, gave out volunteer certificates and celebrated together with pizza, snacks and happy memories. 

We will put extra effort into the promotion of volunteering in the local schools this year and plan to visit all high schools in the area with presentations about the concept of volunteering and to recruit new volunteers. 

We wish you all a very happy and successful 2020!