Tabanovce

It was a sunny Friday – indeed, there must have been at least 26 degrees, which in my country would mean the lucky days of midsummer. Me and Simona with two workers from the organisation Legis went to the refugee camp for the first time. I personally have never been in one and wasn’t really sure what to expect. Will it be chaotic, miserable, scary? What will the people there think of me and do I know how to behave and act not to be disrespectful towards their culture concerning the parts where it differs from mine? Culture that I’m not too familiar with yet despite of how much I wish to learn? Do I have the sensibility to hear where it is okay to ask and where it’s better just to listen.

Our first visit was mostly just about looking around and getting to know the place a little. We learned that there are not that many refugees anymore at Tabanovce camp, maybe around 50. Once we got there I was delightfully surprised to notice that there was a volleyball net and tables for ping-pong table and that people wanted to play with us. After playing for an hour or so we sat down and started to just chat with people. We were talking about where we’re from and where are countries are located. One man from Iraq started playing songs from his country as well as from ours while his wife offered cake she had made.

The atmosphere was really cool, relaxed and friendly. You couldn’t really see any of the pain, fear or misery you might have been warned about, but instead cheerful, welcoming people who were there with you ready to share their stories and knowledge as well as willing to learn and know yours. I felt lucky to be able to volunteer here with and for these people.

Agricultural week

  

          Every week in multi-kulti is diferent and have some special athmosphere. This week have agricultural athmosphere. On this days, when outside start spring we spent more time outside of  Multi-kulti centre. This week we start prepare ground for planting. So, hard work can started and we did it with pleasure. Children was happy, because we was outside and had a very sunny weather. We had a good mood and after one day we had a ground prepare for seed plants. Some children help us with digging graund and with some children we play football or some another game with ball. Inka with some kids made from wood Finnish game called Molky. I wrote about this game last week. Children helping Inka, because they can try work with sawmill. Every boy want to work with this! Beetwen this time, we tried apply our Macedonian language skill, what we gain during Macedonian language lesson and trying communicated with boys in Macedonian language. They correct us and teach new words. Fala! 

           Children helping Inka, because they can try work with sawmill. Every boy want to work with this! Beetwen this time, we tried apply our Macedonian language skill, what we gain during Macedonian language lesson and trying communicated with boys in Macedonian language. They correct us and teach new words. Fala!

            Next day we trying built a stone-garden for plants. We take a stone and built higher and higher and we made a little stone heart before Multi-kulti centre. Unfortunately, somebody during the night destroyed our stone heard for plants. However, we never give up and built stone-garden again :)

            In a Friday we was first time in Refugee camp Tabanovce. I was possitive suprised how this camp look like. Clean enviroment, playground for children, hall for spending free time with ping-pong tables, kitchen, etc. Organisation here trying prepare for refugees suitable condition for short term live here, I think.

            After walking around camp, me and Inka start playing a voleyball. After few minutes came two boys. We started talking together and playing voleyball together, of course. We was a good time. After one hour here, we met around ten people. During the game arrive unknow man and carries us wather. I was suprised. He look like older man and he start play voleyball with us. I must say, that the weather was very hot. How hospitality. After game, we take a rest and talking with to each other about our countries, about sport, culture, we listening music from ours country and we had a good time, I think. And this man´s family was a very hospitality, because we get a cake from his wife. This people don´t have a lot of stuffs, but they know give from this small things what they have. And for me are big people with bigger heart. Nice to meet you! 

Мојата прва недела во Куманово

Зелен пазар во Куманово Tregu i Gjelbër në Kumanovë

Минатато лето, кога прв пат пристигнав во Македонија, Куманово беше првото место кое го видов. Преку прозорецот на автобусот се наоѓаше малиот град кој за мене, една финка од Хелсинки, беше толку егзотичен, толку привлечен, толку балкански, што речиси ќе излезев од автобусот. Тогаш бев на пат за Скопје, но одлучив дека еден ден ќе дојдам и во Куманово. Не знаев дека по девет месеци ќе волонтирам тука.

Од секогаш сум сакала да бидам волонтер на некој интересен проект, но мислев дека во моментот немам време и можност за тоа. Сепак, кога слушав за оваа можност за ЕВС-волонтерство, направив сè за да го организирам мојот живот за да би можела да одам.

Ја поправаме финската друштвена игра „Afrikan tähti„ Duke e rreguluar lojën shoqërore finlandeze “Afrikan tähti”.

Куманово е точно такво како што го замислував, ама веќе првиот ден сфатив колку е различен кумановскиот дијалект од македонскиот јазик што сум го учела досега.

Ја пишуваме нашата домашна работа на македонски јазик

Duke i bërë detyrat e shtëpisë nga gjuha maqedone.

Во Куманово ја сакам атмосферата. Луѓето се многу заинтересирани за нас, од каде сме а што правиме тука, и сакаат да нѐ запознаваат. Работата во MultiКулти е супер а децата со задоволство учествуваат во сите активности кои се организираат. Дури и младите деца знаат англиски изненадувачки добро, а со задоволство ни помагаат со албанскиот и македонскиот, што за мене претставува голема радост бидејќи сакам да учам јазици. Верувам, дека многу ќе уживам во моето време тука, а со нетрпение очекувам да дознаам што ќе научам и видам во текот на месециве.

Младински активизам во Куманово, „Мрдни со прст.„ Aktivizëm rinorë në Kumanovë, “Lëviz me gisht.”

______________________________

Last summer, when I entered Macedonia for the first time, Kumanovo was the first place I ever saw. To a girl from Finland this small city behind the windows of a bus was so exotic, so attractive, so Balkan, that I almost wanted to get out of the bus. At the time I was on my way to Skopje, though, but I decided to definitely come to Kumanovo one day. Back then I didn’t know that only 9 months later I’d be volunteering here for three months.

I’ve always known that I’d like to do voluntary work abroad but I thought I don’t can’t do it yet in this life situation. However, when I heard of this EVS project that seemed exactly what I wanted, I did all I could to arrange my life so that I could go.

Kumanovo was just as I expected, but during the first days I realized how different the local dialect is from that Macedonian, that I’ve learned so far. I love the atmosphere here. People are very interested in us, where we’re from and what we’re doing in Kumanovo, and they want to get to know us. The work in MultiКулти is great and and the kids join all the activities with enthusiasm. Even the younger kids know English surprisingly well and they’re really happy to help us with Albanian and Macedonian, which for me is a great joy since I love learning languages. I really believe I’ll enjoy my time here and I’m looking forward to see and learn a lot.

Intercultural week in Multi-култи

Our second week in EVS we spent in multicultural athmosphere. How awesome. In Monday we had a Language caffe, where children or another visitors in Multikulty can learn something basic words or phrases from EVS´s participants language. In our offer was French language, Finnish language and Slovak language. I think, that for children was the most interesting French language. The French alphabet u can heart another few days. Who know alphabet better? Competed children in Multikulti. In my opinion is a very interesting language Finnish, because is totaly different – and I almost broken my tongue! Don´t believe me? Try says – Moi, mitä kuuluu? Kukkuluuruu! Which means - Hello, how are you? ... Ok maybe this one is not so hard to say, but only this one I remember from Finnish language coffe. Look to the picture and trying! :) 

            
Another day, we had a Finnish night. We learnt how prepare national Finnish food Karjalempiirakka, we can watched Finnish feritale Muumit and play Finnish game Molky. The molky is now very favourite game in Multikulti center. Fala Inka for this game! We had a big fun with prepare of  Karjalempiirakka, because the dough is very sticky and u need be a very patience with it! J

            

In a middle of week we had a Slovakian intercultural night. During my presentation about Slovak country, I show diferences between Slovakia and Slovenia, because I have a lot of problems with it. For example: where are u from? From Slovakia. I know Slovakia, I was last year in Maribor. Ups, Maribor is in Slovenia. I´m from Slovakia – capital is Bratislava, not Lublana. Came back to presentation. I present how beautiful natural we have. I talk about Slovakian traditional food, folklore, famous people or national heritage. In addition I prepared little quiz about Slovakia´s country and who know as a first right answer, get some little present from my country. As a bonus I try to teach some folklore dance like čardáš and polka.

            In Friday, we had French intercultural night. French girls start presentation with video about French beauties include natural and cities. Next we discovered typical national food and some food we can tasted. Cassandra and Elisa prepare Des crepes (pancakes) and Du pain perdu. After presentation we had a little quiz about France. During intercultural French night we can improve our French language from Monday Language caffe and trying to play petanque.

            Every intercultaral night was unique and we gain new skills and information about country, where live EVS participiants in Multikulti.

Notre EVS

Nous sommes 2  françaises venant de Lille (Elisa 19 ans et Cassandre 18 ans) effectuant un SVE à Kumanovo, en Macedoine.

 Nous  réalisons un volontariat de 2 mois au CID (Center for intercultural dialogue) au centre multiculturel pour enfants.

Désormais, voilà environ 15 jours que nous sommes arrivées à Kumanovo.

Lorsque nous sommes arrivées sur place, nous avons été accueilli par Mila Josifovska qui nous a presenté notre logement, puis elle nous a aidé à realiser diverses opérations administratives.

Le soir de notre arrivée, une soirée pour le départ du directeur de la structure était prévu, ce qui nous a permis de rencontrer l’ensemble du personnel et de faciliter notre intégration à cette organisation.

Le week end,  nous en avons profité pour faire connaissance avec les deux autres volontaires (une slovaque, Simona  et une finlandaise Inka ) et allé visiter la ville toutes ensemble.

Concernant notre première semaine au centre, nous avons beaucoup observé leur  fonctionnement qui est très different du notre. Le système scolaire macédonien fonctionne par semaine, les enfants ont cours durant 2 semaines le matin, puis durant 2 semaines l’après midi. Le mode de vie de la population est donc très différent de celui de la  France sur les horaires : que ce soit pour le travail, les repas, les boutiques, ce qui nous a surpris. Mis à part cela nous n’avons pas eu de soucis d’intégration, nous avons vite trouve nos repères dans cette ville, et les petits coins sympathiques comme des restaurants, des bars.. Nous avons des cours de macédonien, l’alphabet n’étant pas le même, il est interessant d’apprendre cette langue puisque nous repartons à zéro.

Le 8 mars, lors de la journée international des femmes, nous avons décoré des pots de fleurs avec les enfants pour qu’ils les offrent à leurs mères.

 Le lendemain, nous avons découpé des bouteilles en platisques afin d’y planter des fleurs avec les enfants.

Cette semaine est la semaine de l’interculturalité, de ce fait, diffrentes soirées sont organisées.

 Lundi soir, des tables d’échanges sur nos languages respectifs (finlandais, slovaque, francais) était prévu afin de faire découvrir et apprendre des mots basics aux enfants.

Mardi soir, lors de la soirée finlandaise organisée par Inka nous avons préparé un repas typique de son pays : karjalanpiirakka et elle a également crée un jeu finlandais :  un Molkky.

Mercredi soir, c’est au tour de Simona, la volontaire slovaque de nous présenter son pays au travers d’une petite soirée.

Jeudi soir,  une soirée film est prévue.

Et vendredi soir c’est a nous de présenter notre pays, pour cela nous avons prévu diverses activités.

 Nous avons encore beaucoup de choses a découvrir dans ce pays, nous sommes impatiente. 

My first week like EVS volunteer

My first week like EVS volunteer

            I was very dedicated to my travel to Macedonia. How will people here? What I can expect from my travel to Macedonia? What I will do like a volunteer? How will be my first fly? All of my fear was destroyed, when I came to Skopije Airport. Challenge accept. When I came to Kumanovo, was a dark. However –on my surprised everywhere was a people. A lot of people! When you go to the city center in Slovakia during dark, you can found a empty streets and some random person who looking for some places in town. People, which I met in Kumanovo is very hospitality and nice. Don’t worry!

            Everything here is new for me. New people, new friendship, new accommodation, new city, new culture, new language and letters – letters of course! and new working place, as well. How is my feelings from this all new stuff? Awesome! Everybody home person here trying me help when I have a some problem. Children in multi-kulti centrum is very open to meet new people, too. We are trying communication together and it is running in a good way. Sometimes we need help with translation, sometimes we use our body like means of communication, but in the end we found a way to talk together, as well. With children in Multi-kulti centrum we did a create workshop, like painting on glass, make a flowerpot, sport like ping-pong, and some cooperation workshop, playing a board games, etc…

            Ok, new language! Chellenge accept. I taught, that for me like a Slavic person from Slovakia, I don’t will have a bigger problem with language. But opposite is true, unfortunately. But I learn quikly, don’t worry. After our first language lesson I taught, that, OK Macedonian language, except letters, is a not so hard. But after second lesson I don’t think so! But we have a very patience teacher. And she must be! I think…  But I will see how I will moving forward in future with my Macedonian language skill.

            My first week in Macedonia passed quickly, I met a lot of new people not only from Kumanovo in Macedonia, but from Finland and French, too and like a voluntaries in Multi-kulti centrum, we start a new friendship, as well. I enjoy my free time here and I hope, that our good relationship will continue.

           

            

International Volunteers' Day

Happy Volunteers Day everyone!
Please check out our video about experiences of some volunteers sent and hosted by CID. :)

Experiences in Tabanovce

In the framework of my EVS-project about Acceptance and Tolerance, for about one month now I have been working in Tabanovce refugee-camp. I spend three-four days in a week in the camp with LEGIS-team, that has been working in the camp since the beginning of the so-called crisis. The refugee camps are the result of Macedonia closing its borders in March 2016 and hence blocking the route for migrants to pass from Greece to Serbia and from there on to EU countries. Since March a couple of hundred migrants are stuck in the camps in Gevgelija (in the south of Macedonia, on the Greek border) and in Tabanovce. The migrants who have chosen to seek asylum in Macedonia, have recently been admitted to transit centers in Skopje where living conditions are slightly better. However, the majority of the people in the camps do not want to seek asylum in Macedonia as their plan is to continue to Germany or to other Western European countries where they might have family- or other ties.

Tabanovce refugee-camp is located around 10 kilometers from the town of Kumanovo, on the Serbian border, by the village of Tabanovce. The official number of persons in the camp is considered to be around 60, of which almost half are children, but on top of that there is a constantly evolving number of migrants staying in outskirts of the camp who, depending on day, are or are not allowed to enter the camp to receive food and other humanitarian aid. The majority of the people in the camp are from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. Lots of them are families, but there are also some unaccompanied minors. Alongside LEGIS, many other NGOs work in the camp daily (Red Cross, UNHCR, UNICEF, MYLA, IOM, Helsinki Comittee, La Strada...). The entries and exists are strictly controlled and only persons holding a permit can entry the camp.

Concretely, what we do with LEGIS, is that we bring food-packages that then are distributed to the people in the camp by Red Cross, organize activities for children and adults and just “hang around” to talk with people and help them with what ever they might need. Currently we do not have any officially planned activities in the camp, we rather work according to needs and demand of people; when we go to the camp I usually have in mind what kind of activities I would like to do with the children that day; however I might end up doing something completely different. The activities vary from drawing, doing crafts and photographing to language lessons and physical activities like playing football or learning acrobatics. One activity I did that children were really exited about was writing letters to their friends and family members in other countries. Most of them wrote to their relatives in Germany and even added photos in the envelops. I sent all the letters that children could provide an actual address for. With adults, doing activities is harder because it is difficult to find meaningful activities that they would be interested in – after all, all they want to do is to continue their journey to Western Europe. Our role as volunteers is not to force them to do anything they do not want to, instead what we can do is to talk and listen to them and help them with issues they might have. Sometimes we manage to gather adults to play table-tennis, football, do jewelries or to learn languages – anything that makes the time that is so long to pass even a tiny bit faster.

The migrants in the camp live in containers and many NGOs have their own in which they organize activities. Currently the camp is quite empty compared to how it used to be and the facilitates seem to be quite all right. The biggest problem is that many people have spent up to eight months without freedom of movement in the camp; the people are not allowed to leave the camps in Macedonia, which makes the conditions prison-a-like. The children can not go to (proper) school and the adults can not work, visit cities or keep up in almost anyway with normal way of living. That also keeps them separated from the Macedonian society, not having any contacts with Macedonians, apart from those working in the camps, and not knowing much about the country despite having stayed here almost for a year. People are very frustrated because no one knows how much longer the situation will last.

Personally the issue that concerns me the most is the conditions of those not being able to live in the camp. Nobody really knows the reason why some people can stay in the camp and some can not. Many seem to think it is a question of country of origin; some people are considered refugees and some are not, even though legally speaking nobody is a refugee at that point and in any case being a refugee has nothing to do with ones country of origin as the refugee-status relies (or should rely) on individual persecution. Anyhow, even though the majority of the migrants not having access to the camp has this last month been from Northern African countries, recently there has also been Syrian migrants amongst them and even some families. It is somewhat ironic that for the migrants inside the camp the conditions are comparable to a prison, but for those outside, the conditions are even worse; sleeping in the “jungle” (forest), not having a guarantee of food or any other humanitarian aid on a daily basis and facing violence both by the police and the smugglers. The situation is really absurd because there are not much options for these individuals; borders are closed making it really difficult to cross to Serbia or to go back to Greece, even though some of them might have temporary residence permits there. Therefore for some of them the only choice is to stay in Macedonia where they are not welcome in the camps either. Even working with them as a volunteer is very complex because of certain rules in the camp and hence any little thing like distributing food, charging a phone or just having a conversation with them feels like a little victory – which is ridiculous, because having a conversation with someone should absolutely not be considered illegal. On top of the other challenges these people are facing, it is getting very cold in Macedonia and temperatures going down to -10 degrees celsius in the night makes it urgent to resolve the situation.

I do not deny that sometimes it is very frustrating of not being able to do anything about certain situations in the camp and to collaborate with people who have very different views about how to work in these kind of situations, what is right and wrong and how you should talk about refugees and migrants, for example. But despite all that, working in the camp is also lots of good moments both with children and adults. Seeing children's smily faces when arriving to the camp and seeing them exited about the activities proposed are one of the greatest moments of my days in Tabanovce. Having conversations about life, hearing stories of different countries and having moments of laugh with people are always such a delight. And it is not only about giving or “helping them” (a term that should be banned anyway), it is also about learning from them, sharing with them. In the same way that I am interested where they come from, what are their plans and dreams for the future, they want to know who am I and where I come from. I might be able to teach them English or French but I have also been able to learn some Arabic – and trust me, the children are very excited when they get to be teachers! I think it is very important for everyone to keep in mind that the migrants are not only “poor victims”, just as much they are not “potential criminals”, like media tends to picture them - but individuals just like anyone else looking for a safe place to live, who has a huge potential in them if they are just let to use it.

*all the photos taken by the Children in Tabanovce in November 2016 

Open Doors 4 Social Inclusion

Finally, last Sunday 27th November, the final event presenting the results of our EVS projects took place in the MultiKulti social center.

Rural development and Acceptance and tolerance have been the topics of our projects, and we wanted to share with the public our two months experience.

In furtherance of this objective we organised a photo exhibition, a human library and a public debate.

Everybody was invited, at 3 o'clock MultiKulti opened its doors for the public. The photo exhibition was comoposed by photos taken by the kids from the Tabanovce refugee camp and photos showing portraits and initiatives of people living in rural areas. The "huaman books" shared their stories and we had an animated moving debate about migration and about the future of the rural areas in MK.

see you for the next event, we let you with some pictures of the day :)

Weekend in Kavadarci!

Zdravo!

Saturday we took the opportunity to go to Kavadarci (in the south of Macedonia) with our coordinator, he used to live there and we wanted to meet people from rural areas for our project. It was also nice to discover the city and our coordinator's previous employment with the youth organisation, CreACTive.

How is the best way to meet local people? We spent the saturday night in local pubs and had the chance to meet other international volunteers (EVS, Peacecorps...) and local youth workers.

Understanding rural life is not always easy, so on Sunday we went to Marena, a little village near Kavadarci to visit and meet Vancho a local farmer who lives with his mother in a house in the countryside.

Their welcoming was perfect, they showed us the house and the garden, gave us an interview and invited us to eat and drink homemade rakija and ajvar, what more can we ask for :) ?

Under a beautiful blue sky, we walked to find the CreACTive farm, a 500 square meters land run by the association, where local youth and international volunteers work together, and can discover the permaculture techniques, eco-construction principles, composting and other environmental values.

Perhaps in the future the youth from Marena and Kavadarci could bring these ecological techniques to the rest of farmers and habitants in the area, it would be great.

Back in town, we returned to the pub for a meeting with one of the youth involved in the CreACTive projects, he told us about his experiences and we shared a good moment.

Intense weekend if we can say, but we enjoyed it. We love to meet new people and discover new places, and it was very productive for our 'coming soon' photo exhibition.

The trip back from Kavadarci to Kumanovo allowed us to have some rest. Our coordinators version of a direct bus, it wasn't. We stopped for 45 minutes in Skopje! but finally we made it.

Counting the days until the next discovering trip around Macedonia, we think it wont be before the end of our EVS period, which is almost over :(

Hope to see you around!