Between 18th and 22nd October 2017, we hosted a team of 22 students from the American International School in Salzburg (Austria). As volunteers, they contributed to the project of extending the house of Agata and Mirosław’s family in Redzyńskie (near Warsaw).
ABOUT WORK
The volunteers contributed to the works aimed at extending the house of Agata and Mirosław’s family in Redzyńskie (near Warsaw). The goal of the project is to create more living space for the family so they no longer have to live in one room.
You can learn more about the project and the family on the project page.
The volunteers helped to:
- install the roofing
- erect paritition walls on the upper floor
- prepare the construction site for the winter, for example seal window openings
ABOUT FREE TIME
The volunteers got to know the Polish culture and people in the time free from helping out at the build site. They visited a nearby school in Żaków where they met local students. They also had a barbecue, played soccer with local children and took a guided tour around Warsaw’s Old Town.
TESTIMONIALS FROM THE VOLUNTEERS
When the trip was over, the volunteers filled in evaluation forms where they underlined how meaningful the trip was for them:
• The highlight for me was seeing the joy on the faces of each of the family members with whom we were working. We could not necessarily communicate verbally with them, but shared so many wonderful moments with them throughout our experience. It was a constant reminder of why we should volunteer.
• My favorite experience was meeting the kids and spending time with them, learning something new and giving them hope.
• The travel was good, I really enjoyed helping people and the place was nice, people here treated us really good and everything was good. I’m really proud we made a good work and I hope I can do this again one day.
TESTIMONIAL FROM THE SCHOOL STAFF MEMBER
We asked Louis, one of the staff members of the American International School in Salzburg, about the reasons why the school sends its students to Habitat’s build sites. He explained as follows:
We chose Habitat 6 years ago as an organization we use every year for a yearly community service trip because we feel that the organization is very much in line with what we want to teach our students. When I say that, I mean that service is important: giving back to the community, using hands to help people but also having the actual relationship to people. It is not just building a house or working with your hands but actually getting to interact with people who are being helped, working side by side along them. This is very much line with what we want students to learn and the kind of people we want them to become.
We also want the students to become more familiar with one another, to develop the teamwork skills within their class, to become closer with their teammates. For them building a house is very much outside of their comfort zone so experiencing it as a group really brings them together.
