📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
The ijgd has been organising volunteer service programmes since 1949. We are an independent, non-profit association for international youth work, a recognised independent youth welfare organisation, and one of the largest and oldest workcamp organisations in Germany. Each year, we assist around 5,000 young people into volunteer work in Germany and abroad. We give them the opportunity to be creative, act in solidarity, take responsibility for themselves, and discover their own true potential and strengths. Our principles: Ecological learning, voluntary contribution, self-organisation, social development, intercultural learning, gender equality, anti-racism/anti-discrimination and political education.
💼 What the programme involves
You want to create habitats for bees and sheep and save a moor? This is the right workcamp for you! This project will give you an insight into practical nature conservation work, especially the various maintenance measures that are required in different habitats. Together with your group, you will care for and protect a small moor and the typical moor plants that grow there, such as sundew and European cranberry, and thus make an important contribution to their preservation. After decades of work, the moor has been cleared of large birch trees. Now, among other things, young birch trees that are growing back have to be removed and poplars etc. have to be cleared at the edges. Furthermore you will clear shrubs and other unwanted plants in a former sand mining area to preserve this habitat for its typical inhabitants. NABU Syke und Umland e.V. also uses sheeps to maintain its areas. For their welfare, you will build a new sheep shelter and repair fences. Here you will also uncover soil for wild bees.
Your group will also support the Syke district forester's office in building fences and tending young growth in already established plantations. In addition, you will improve the living conditions for heat-loving animal and plant species through biotope maintenance on dry sites and by clearing and exposing sandy areas. You will also actively help with other forestry work, such as clearing and keeping open hiking and driving trails or maintaining and caring for recreational facilities. In addition to the practical work, you will learn a lot about nature conservation, environmental protection and animal welfare from the NABU staff and the district forester. You will learn a lot about the local flora and fauna and about the protection of endangered habitats.
(Where: Syke, 20 km south of Bremen, 120 km west of Hamburg)
🏠 Accommodation on site
Meals: The group will prepare and cook meals together. Money is made available for this purpose.
Accommodation: You will stay in 3 and 4-bed rooms in a shared accommodation in Syke.
📍 About the location
The varied landscape invites you to go on excursions and hikes.
In addition, your accommodation is 20 km and a 20-minute train ride from the centre of Bremen. The 1,200-year-old Hanseatic city of Bremen (www.bremen.de) offers many sights and cultural attractions.
At the weekend you can go on excursions to the North Sea coast (e.g. Bremerhaven), to Hamburg or other cities.
⚠️ Requirements
Fitness for physically demanding work; weatherproof work clothes; sturdy footwear (waterproof shoes, rubber boots if available)
ℹ️ Additional information
Smoking is absolutely prohibited in the accommodation.