ESC: volunteering in alternative community

The Atelier Wolimierz Foundation is a non-governmental and non-profit organization which was officially registered in January 2014 . However, before official registration, for a few years, people, from the foundation, were promoting culture and sustainable development among young people and local community. The Atelier Wolimierz is situated on the border of two villages - Wolimierz and Pobiedna, the rolling rural landscape of the Jizera Mountains. Foundation Atelier Wolimierz is acting in the whole Jizery Mountains region. We are here primarily for young people. The Foundation's activity is aimed at the promotion of young people engagement and tolerance behavior. We use culture and art, as our main tools. We believe that participation in culture and art is also raising in general competences of society, creating conditions for developing creativity and preparing citizens for active participation in various forms of social life. With our actions we want to equalize the chances of people living away from cities and prevent cultural exclusion of rural residents. Our everyday work we base on principles of non-formal education methods, which we try to use not only in activities for young people, but also among Ateleir Wolimierz team members. We also promote the ideas of volunteering and social work. With volunteers from all over the world, we renovated Atelier Wolimierz with materials, which in 80% are recycled. Now Atelier Wolimierz serves as a place for workshops, concerts and meetings for local people. We promote various kinds of creative artistic activities - e.g we provide walls for young graffiti artists, we teach construction from tires, cans, bottles and other civilization waste. We strive to create the best space and conditions for innovative creations. Always with a view to the future, future generations, our children and children of our children. Our activities we do on both levels - local and international, since we strongly believe, that combination of this two levels are the best way to promote tolerance and active participation in European society. That is why we try to involve our young people in different international projects, same as encourage them to organize such projects here, in our region of Jizery mountains. The most important part of our activities is the organization of different events (mostly concerts) for local young people.