📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
The workcamp is organized by YAP – Youth Action for Peace with Rio de Oro; Rio de Oro is a non profit association whose aim is to provide medical care and assistance to Saharawi people, especially kids with different kinds of disabilities (physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental). Saharawi (desert people) lives in refugee camps in the southwest of Algeria. The Sahrawi refugees have survived the great exodus from the Western Sahara: endless marches in the desert in 1975. Rio de Oro was established in 2000 and helps Saharawi people with handicap problems directly in Algeria and in Italy. The main activities of Rio de Oro are: child sponsorship, support to the schools of special education, health care in refugee camps, summer camps and health care in Italy for disabled children (6-14 years old). Website: http://www.riodeoro.it/
💼 What the programme involves
The international volunteers will be helping the staff and numerous national volunteers work with Saharawi children (6-14 years old) with different kinds of disabilities (physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental). This means that most of the kids are not self-sufficient. Make and participate to activities for the children (collective games, didactic activities...), feeding them (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks), getting them dressed, changing the diapers, showers, house care (cleaning, cooking ... ). But also we need volunteers to come with a lot of energy to play, push wheelchair, go to the beach with the children. The volunteers are request to take care of children in all the activities they do during the day: in the morning the children wake up about at 8 AM and they do various activities until the moment of lunch. After lunch there is a brake for volunteers, while children take an afternoon-nap. In the afternoon more relaxing tasks are scheduled, like play, going to the seaside or take a walk. In the evening, children will go to sleep a little while after the dinner; all the evening will then be free for the volunteers. Volunteers are also requested to carry out shifts in order to contribute to the common life in the school (like being an assistant-cook, washing, tiding-up...). The main languages of the camp will be Spanish (Western Sahara used to be a Spanish colony, before Moroccan occupation; the children accompanists are fluent spanish speakers) and Italian (local volunteers), anyway English is commonly spoke by all the volunteers. Of course, children will talk Hassaniya, which is their mother-tongue, but some of them are fast learners and will be able to understand and speak Italian and Spanish – you will be anyway able to understand the children in a way that may even surprise yourself, and there will be a lot of interprets to help!
🏠 Accommodation on site
The international volunteers will be hosted at the primary school in the city centre along with the national volunteers and the children. The school is equipped with: 5 shared bedrooms that will be appropriately separated for girls and boys, and the kids; bathrooms and a shower for each bedroom + common bathrooms; dining room; kitchen; common areas: two halls for activities; gardens with games around the building; rooms for the children physical therapy. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are provided at the canteen by the hosting organization.
📍 About the location
Grottammare is a really nice seaside town of 15.000 inhabitants on Italy’s Adriatic coast, in the province of Ascoli Piceno, Marche region. Nearest airports are ROME (Ciampino or Fiumicino), BOLOGNA, PESCARA and ANCONA. You will be able to reach Grottammare either by train (Grottammare railway station) or by bus (there is a bus-stop in Grottammare in G. Matteotti street). There is a direct bus from Roma Fiumicino "Leonardo da Vinci" airport to Grottammare.
ℹ️ Additional information
YAP project-related motivation form is required. English/Spanish workcamp. AFTER the acceptance, you are required to provide an extract of your criminal record (Certificate of Good Conduct).
