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.
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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.
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
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Today – Wednesday, November 23 – is one of the days in the year that is proclaimed ‘Tree Day’ in Macedonia. Although we already planted some trees last week on ‘Tolerance Day’, we were excited to join the masses to some place outside of the city, using the free busses that leave from the big Sports centre close to our house.
Together with the volunteers from Kreaktiv in Skopje ambitious plans were made the night before to go early in the morning. When we finally were ready to go in to the wild, with the 14:00 shift, five young Europeans went on their way to re-forest Macedonia, one tree at a time.
As is usual in Skopje there is little to no information at bus stops, so we decided to wait on the street in front on the arena, all of us feeling the usual combination of uncertainty and despair when waiting for a bus to come. After a few minutes we decided to look around the corner at the main street to see a bus full of children with a small improvised Tree Day sign in the window racing passed us. The children waved at us enthusiastically. Then we saw the bus leaving towards the – undoubtedly re-forested – horizons.
Fifteen more minutes of waiting brought the unanimous decision to walk back home. Apparently our EVS colleague Anouk did plant some trees on mountain Vodno. The trees that were left from Tolerance Day, but no-one will ever know or see the difference, I guess.
Back home we found small consolation in our own garden. Our beloved pear-tree; that gave us almost unlimited fruit-goodness during summer but now sadly has lost all its leaves seemed to be in need of some extra autumn attention. Pictures below.
