by Sylwia Gorska
Few weeks ago, while staying in a beautiful village Papradista, 60 km from Veles, I had a chance to meet Igor Smilev and heard his story about the struggle for closing the lead and zinc smelting factory located within the city of Veles, whose operation has had devastating effects on people’s health. Igor is an environmental activist the leader of Green Power and citizen of Veles. In 2002 he and his friends contributed towards shutdown of the factory, in 2011 they organized one of the biggest protest in Macedonia against restarting of the factory. There have been a lot of studies on environment and people’s health, they all show that we can easily name the consequences of the factory an “environmental genocite”. I recommend watching a movie “Topilnica Good Veles Kaput” on youtube, words of a German engineer, who said them when he realized what his project had done to all the area and people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=InXnVghBT2A&feature=relmfu
Unfortunately for some money will be always much more important event then human lives. One of the director of the corporation that intends to restart the factory had filed a lawsuit against Igor for “endangering security”, “unauthorized recording”, “slander” and “insult”, requesting EUR 20,000 damages.
The case will be held on the 9 of May in Veles. Igor has a lot of friends, inhabitants of Veles and international organizations, giving him support. Let’s hope it will be enough to win this absurd case. I don’t see any other possibility. If he wins he plan to give the money to hospitals, especially gynecological departments, since in Veles was the highest level of miscarriages and anomalies of human embryos. On this day a big protest is planning. All the inhabitants of Veles and other cities will give support to Igor and fight for a normal life.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Filed under: Uncategorized
by Sylwia Gorska
Do you remember stories about Dracula or tales by Edgar Alla Poe? Dark romaticism and Gothicism, world of satan, ghosts, vampires…stories often taking place in haunted houses, full of corridors, old wooden, creaking floors, somewhere in England, Germany or deep Romania…To feel a shiver down your spine you don’t have to move far! Kisela Voda has its own scary house! It is not easy to find but when you ask people about scary green building for sure they will now the way. It is hard to say when it was built but there are lot of legends about it. Nobody wants to buy this house and its land cause it is said to be cursed. First owners died in strange circumstances, the next one was the master of solving strange stories of haunted places. He came to find out what is so amazing in this house, he made a lot of research but all his work together with himself disappeared without any trace. If you have enough courage and enter the house you will see still fresh colors on the walls, despite of fire, mysterious rooms and amazing attic with round windows…for which reason it was built, who lived in this house, what kind of secrets it still hides…? Enter the house and maybe the answers will appear in your dreams or…nightmares!
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Yesterday (2012-01-20), Maxim, also volunteer in VCS and me decided to go to Tetovo and try to ski. More or less, early in the morning we went to take the bus (you can find one bus to Tetovo every half hour) to Tetovo. When we arrived to Tetovo we didn’t know how to get in the ski station, but we saw one cartel with a picture of a chairlift and we followed it. We walked but we didn’t find anything, so we decided to stop a car, but no one stopped. So finally we took a taxi to the lift that goes to the ski station. It was very near from we were so we didn’t have to pay almost nothing. Unfortunately the lift was closed, so we decided to hitchhike. We took one car to half way and another until the end. When finally we were there, we rent the skis, and we started to go up and down. We eat some sandwiches in the top of the mountain, and we enjoyed as much as we could the snow. To go back, the same two guys that took us to the station brought us back to Tetovo.
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Last weekend some volunteers went to Struga to enjoy the crazy carnival of Vevcani. This video and pictures are the results of the road trip with one and only destination.
Filed under: evs adventures | Tags: balkans, evs, kosovo, macedonia, pristina, skopje, travelling, volunteer
Last December, crazy volunteers from Skopje and Bitola decided to explore Pristina during the Skena Up Festival… Check it out our experience in the Kosovarian roads in this awesome video and pictures!!!!
On the 5th of december, Matilda, Koen and me (Sara) went to the center to promote volunteerism by doing the thing that Skopje is the best in, STATUES.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: balkans, Sarajevo Training EVS Volunteers, volunteer
Luxury and delight – two words describing on-arrival training. But we deserve after 15 hours in the bus going through Serbia and even part of Croatia, definitely we deserve. Some of you already have seen our room and bathroom in the photos, but its worth to know that only we have a bath or so called Jacuzzi 😉
Last Sunday night we took a bus from Skopje to go to Sarajevo, after 15 hours and several stops to check the passport we arrive to the capital of Bosnia and Herzegovina. We were tired so we slept and after went to dinner. After dinner we had the first session of the training, we were too much so we were split in two groups.
The next four mornings and some afternoons were dedicated to the training, we spoke about how to solve problems, the different positions that each person takes in front of the problem, identity, what is normal for us and for our community, about our host country, about our personal projects, learning process, evs as service, youth in action, aha moments… We also made some theatre.
We had also great opportunity to express ourselves during AHA Space, space for learning, findings, feelings, facts and joker. We tried not to follow the polish –complaining stereotype, but nobody is perfect, so one AHA-space changed into group therapy 😉 What was surprising – people who never met before listened and solved together more or less significant problems and motivated each other. Was it worth? AHA, for sure.
On Thursday afternoon we had the free afternoon to visit Sarajevo. First we went to the Olympic museum, which I didn’t like too much. After we went for a walk in Sarajevo, we went to the top of a hotel to see the skyline of Sarajevo at night. After we eat cheap “cevapi”, and after we went to two bar-pubs.
Last day, it was all about reflecting about all the training. We spoke about all we learnt, about how we felt… At night we had a good bye party in the hotel.
Pictures by Sara Fantova & Marta Maja Lipińska
volunteer adventures 