New memeber in the EVS team of 2014

Hello, I’m new volunteer in K.A.NE. My name is Ece Zihni.

I’m 22 years old. I came from Ankara, Turkey. I’m interesting with music. I’m playing Acoustic and Bass Guitar and I’m vocal. In Istanbul I studied with a lot of band. So, in here  definitely I want to do something about music. And I want to create some organizations for people. 

This June, I graduated from Istanbul University, Economics Faculty as a bachelor. After to be student I thought about volunteering. Especially EVS is perfect opportunity for me before the work-life. Because with this way I’m improving myself. I’m learning new language (Greek). In addition I met new cultures and I had new friends in here. That’s all great gain. 

And EVS is really beneficial about humanity. Because we are learning to be helpful in here. We are sharing our accumulation with some workshops. For example, I’m teaching to Turkish to someone and I’m learning to Salsa&Traditional Greek Dance. 

This is my second week in Kalamata. I think it is enough time for loving this city. Mountains, sea, beach and city center. So it looks like a pretty town. And local people are helpful. In here I did not live problems. In addition, I awared something that Greek and Turkish Culture looks like each other. I watched people and their life and their behavior. I liked it. 

For now, my story is like this. After it will continue. J

KEKYKAMEA

KEKYKAMEA

By: EDA

My first day in Kekykamea my feelings was a little bit strange because I have no experience in a disabled center. I thought that, this is perfect experience because you will know and learn  about the disable and learn about them, they can saw you many thinks, they saw you to appreciate the little things in life and to enjoy the small things also.

I had experience about people who have body disabled but I never have experience about mental disabled people.

I want to be honest from the beginning because of this reason I was little bit worry, but with the time, I understood that this job is not easy. You need to have patience when Nikos ask you million times "σπίτι μετά, σπίτι μετά; ", the same when Giorgia ask you million times something that you said "δεν καταλαβαίνω, δεν ξέρω ελληνικά. ", when she try to ask again again and again. But now, I can understand that they want to communicate, they want to talk  and share with you. They have clear mind more than a lot of people, they do what they want to do instantly. Everything is sincere.           

Sometimes  the Youth Center have collaborated with us  with others volunteers ideas.  Last time Amaia and one Circus Company from France came to Kekykamea  to make a workshop, a little of juggling and a bit of body awareness.They enjoy a lot!!!.

We have a lot of workshops in Kekykamea; cooking, gardening, dancing, english, ceramics, painting, music and storytelling workshops. 

My favorite workshops are music and storytelling because I love music, I will be part of storytelling workshop singing with  one guy who will play guitar, another women will tell story and children will play behind the curtain. Perfect teamwork!!!. And for music workshop this is also really good a women playing piano and we are singing all togehter. That is also good for improve our  Greek.

And one of my favorite job in Kekykamea is the "transportation", we are helping to the youth for bring then from their home and come back. This is not job from the beginning actually, because you don't know Kalamata exactly and this job is helping you about learn around and sometimes far places also around Kalamata. That is really good like touristic stuff.

RE-THINK 

By: Uğurcan

Project Re:Think was inspired by and essentially created through the serious wasted problem that faces our city, especially in the last 4 years. The older uncontrolled dumps, and particularly the current dump of Maratholakka in the Natura region of Taygetos, demonstrate that there has been no institutional progress in the field of integrated waste management.    By: Kostas and Mirto

I have never seen like it before. In my country we throw the food wastes with other wastes. and the easy think is throw and dont think. But we are living in the world. Re-think project about the food wastes becoming compos. This is the best way I think. Because you throwing the food waste in the composting box and its becoming compost then you can use for your plants. you dont pay for peshicides. Before to throw food waste please RE-THINK.

The Therapeutic Horse Riding

The Therapeutic Horse Riding

By: Melina

Pure nature, mountains, seaside, lovely street cats, biting horses, barking and killing dogs,  crazy sheeps, squeaking pigs, little acrobatics …No, I’m not talking about a circus, I’m talking about my lovely EVS project that is more a hobby than a work for me. 

Three days per week and two times per day Carmelo and me are cycling the long beach road along to our Coordinator’s home enjoying the sun or freezing into ice. In the idyllic garden full of orange trees and other fruits and vegetables a small black and especially crazy dog is expecting us. His name is Kefdes and his gender is actually still unknown. All together we make our way to the horse riding place close to Verga that is owned by Agnes. A small mountain chain and citrus trees are surrounding our working and riding place.

Next to this you can find the homey place of the horses. The horse that we are always using is Prima. She is very lazy and if she doesn’t want to trot (her steady mood), for sure she will let you know through a quick bite in your arm. Since there are a lot of crazy animals in this place, Prima becomes scared very quickly and that can cause a lot of problems. So you (in this case me) you have to take a lot of care and keep her calm. Whereas I take mostly care of the horse, Carmelo is taking care of the children. Also this can be a really dangerous job: Often the small acrobatics hit you with the stick, the ball, and the hammer to wake you up or just pull your hair!
But next to all those dangerous risks we take, we also have a lot of fun with the children and learn a lot. Every child has its special needs and is every time in a different mood. That means we are doing individual exercises for each child. Some of them need more gymnastic exercises, some of them exercises to make them concentrate and so on. It is also very interesting and impressing to see how the child is developing and to realise that they develop so fast just because of such simple things. Just sitting on the horse, feeling the movement and imitating can improve the child’s whole movement. We also have a couple of very active and noisy children who only start to relax on the horse. Simple things like cleaning the horses or just to finish an exercise makes them feel proud of themselves and very happy. To see the children like this makes us even happier!
The fact that we are working with animals and children which are having all the time a different mood, makes it always very exciting because you never know what is going to happen. For sure there are always coming out a lot of good anecdotes! 

For me, and I think for Carmelo, I can say that we are very happy about our project to play such an important and necessary role and that we are doing something so effective!