Green Skills - 3 successful years

"Green Skills" started as a "Youth in Action" project under the European Voluntary Service (EVS) scheme, but has developed into a consistent programme for Suderbyn's voluntary service work. 

The European Voluntary Service (EVS) provides young Europeans with the unique chance to express their personal commitment through unpaid and full-time voluntary activities in a foreign country within or outside the EU. In this way, it seeks to develop solidarity, mutual understanding and tolerance among young people, thus contributing to reinforcing social cohesion in the European Union and to promoting young people's active citizenship.

So far the "Green Skills" programme has worked with 3 long-term EVS projects spanning 3 consecutive years, as well as educational courses where the experience of hosting volunteers is spread to other ecovillages and similar projects, so that they can start similar projects themselves.

As a by-product of the volunteer experience, an "Internship Handbook" was made where the most relevant volunteer services for ecovillages was described. The handbook is part of the Ecovillages project and has been presented in several ecovillage workshops around the Baltic Sea. The handbook will be one of the first things to be distributed through the Baltic Sea Region Ecovillage Network currently worked on in the TESTS project.

Timeline

Green Skills I: Spring 2011 - Spring 2012

- 2 x EVS volunteers (from France) stayed for one year
- 3 x EVS volunteers (from Turkey, France & Italy) stayed for 6 months
- 5 x EVS volunteers (from Italy, Germany & Portugal) stayed for 3 months
- 3 x EVS volunteers (from Denmark, France & Spain) stayed for 2 months

Green Skills II: Spring 2012 - Spring 2013

- 5 x EVS volunteers (from Belgium, England, Spain & Latvia) stayed for one year
- 2 x EVS volunteers (from Hungary & Germany) stayed for 6 months

Summer 2012

- EcovillageHost was held between 26th of July and 6th of August at Suderbyn. The project was part of the "Youth In Action" programme, and aimed to educate ecovillagers around the Baltic Sea about how to host volunteers in their ecovillages. Altogether 40 people attended the project, in addition to an IAL work camp about vegetarian cooking with an additional 7 participants. 

Green Skills III: Spring 2013 - Spring 2014

- 2 x EVS volunteers (from Slovakia & Portugal) staying for one year
- 1 x EVS volunteer (from England) staying for 6 months
- 1 x EVS volunteer (from Russia) staying for 3 months