Oberesch – building inclusive bridges

Name: Oberesch – building inclusive bridges
Start: 2022-07-25
End: 2022-08-10
Location: Rehlingen-Siersburg, Germany

Germany Environment People with disabilities Environment People with disabilities Fixed dates

About the project

📝 Detailed information

🏢 About the local organisation

Building inclusive bridges! Volunteering is for everyone! This project is based on the cooperation of IBG with “VIB Saarland“ and the local community of Oberesch. The local host “VIB“ is a charity organization offering jobs for people with mental or physical disabilities and organising various inclusion projects. Your volunteering team will support them in their inclusion strategy, creating new options for activities for their target group and offering new fields of (intercultural) experiences. The three main aspects of the project are: working together, meeting and having fun together. Already in 2018, all three partners realised a first international workcamp around the inclusive recreation area together. The experience was really impressive - for IBG, the international volunteers and for the people from Oberesch. After that, several people from the village have become involved in a volunteering project abroad themselves. In recent years, the people of Oberesch and VIB have regularly worked together on different assignments, which led to an intensified cooperation and understanding among them, advanced the project and intensified contact. Now it is time to bring in an international dimension again and everyone is looking forward to the exchange and cooperation with your volunteering team.

💼 What the programme involves

International volunteers will work together with a group of young people with disabilities and local youth from the village of Oberesch, to ecologically enhance an inclusive recreation area. This unique project is a follow-up to a 2018 work camp. The focus and motto of the project is: "Volunteering is for everyone". In recent years, an inclusive recreation area has been created around the small Eschbachweiher Lake, where all people - with or without disabilities - can experience nature: The barefoot path is also designed for people with visual impairments; a fishing spot can also be used by people in wheelchairs; the signs of the ecological nature trail are in plain language... Together you will maintain and expand the recreation area. Concrete tasks include the construction of a breeding wall for kingfishers, the construction of a shoe rack for the barefoot path, the planting of a meadow orchard, the maintenance of the circular path as well as forestry and landscape maintenance work. The cooperation of young people across all barriers and borders, the exchange of ideas and point of views and the shared fun are the special values of this volunteering team. In addition to the work, numerous joint excursions and activities are part of the programme.

🏠 Accommodation on site

The accommodation for the international volunteers will be in the village community centre of Oberesch. Here you can find a big kitchen, a spacious hall as living and sleeping room and toilets and washing room of course. Showers are provided nearby. The accommodation is quite basic, but local people will support you when needed. The local volunteers will spend the night at home. Your group of volunteers will be responsible for grocery shopping and cooking together. The food will be bought with the camp budget and everybody will take turns for cooking, washing the dishes and cleaning. In order to reduce our carbon footprint on the planet, we encourage volunteers to reduce meat and try more sustainable dishes.

📍 About the location

The project will take place in Oberesch, a small village with 320 inhabitants situated directly at the German-French border, approx. 40km north of Saarbrücken. The local youngsters are already waiting to meet you. In the area you can find several castles and the famous valley of the river Saar, offering many opportunities for nice excursions, even to destinations in France or hiking tours. The region Saarland has a rich history of steel production and coal mining. Many excursions and activities will be done together with the people from Oberesch and from the regional Charity (VIB), thus making the project an unforgettable experience.

⚠️ Requirements

Please add a motivation letter in English or German to show your high motivation for the project, interest and experience in working with people with disabilities (What kind of experience do you have? What do you think you can contribute?). This project is a Volunteering Team within the European Solidarity Corps program. Volunteers have to have legal residency in an EU country, there is a strict age limit of 18 to 30 years and there are a few important steps to take before and after the project in addition: • Registering in the ESC portal • signing a Volunteering agreement • handing in a personal report and travel tickets In return participation is free of charge, as well as food and accommodation. Volunteers need to stay the full duration of the project in order to get their pocket money (5 euros per day) and travel cost reimbursed (20-360 euros depending on distance). Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, all volunteers need to be either fully vaccinated (2 to 3 shots of one of the following vaccines: BioNtech/Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca or Johnson&Johnson) or recovered (date of infection must be at least 28 days old and max 90 days old).

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