When I became a part of arco e.V in April as a volunteer, I was pleasingly surprised by the variety of duties I got. I could try tasks in various areas I would be interested in developing. Arco e.V. is an organization based in Wiesbaden that promotes lifelong learning through creativity and movement. One important aspect of work in this NGO is hosting international projects and working with the younger generation.
When summer began, the time came to launch holiday Kinder-Kultur-Projekte. Teamers from arco e.V. host it yearly in Mainz, where for several weeks, Hartenbergpark transforms into Cooltown with young artists coming from all nearby cities, including Wiesbaden. This summer was different, as Ukrainian kids and teamers who joined it, made the project international.
I absolutely loved the atmosphere of kids running around together, creating art, and developing circus skills all week, despite the diversity of languages spoken. One could hear German, Ukrainian, and English flowing from all corners of the park. And the key was, that we didn’t separate kids in Ukrainian/German groups, we were letting them interact with each other, which, as for me, was quite succesful.
Personally, I was enjoying multi-cultural workshops, learning new skills myself (I learned to juggle!), and expanding my creativity in various ways.
It was such a wonderful experience. I will miss these summer days!
