In April 2012, 6 volunteers from France, Hungary, Estonia, Lithuania, Spain experiences their European Voluntary Service in an education centre in a nature reserve “Serra Guarneri” near the Madonie Park and at Noe Association in a confiscated land to Mafia near Partinico.
Youth actively participate in daily care of animals (didactical farm), organic garden, educational activities.
Nature has been the context of learning and sharing between them for a month.
Practical tasks were fundamental in the volunteer’s daily programme. These offer a two-sided learning experience. On one level, practical tasks gave volunteers the opportunity to try different kinds of hands- on- activities and gain practical skills to be used later in life (for example painting, cleaning, cooking, using tools, etc). On another side, the practical skills gained through these tasks are accompanied by a wide variety of soft skills. In this way, practical tasks do not just develop a young person’s manual skills but they serve to develop their social skills at the same time.
More over the group gain new cultural perspectives, thanks to the heterogeneous group and the experience in a foreigner country.
