Unamagazine august2011

Writers and photographers Akuila Maliqi

Owen McGill

Dorothee Beikert

Rebekka Rehm

Jacqueline Ullemeyer

Thea Roemmen

Clara Bofill

Anna Wisniowska

Cristina Fort

Yoonjoo Jung

Yuria Haba

Zhanet Stamatova

Shoko Izawa

Angel Stamatov

Anna Mas

Lea Kienlein-Zach

Graphic design Silvia PĂŠrez Clara Bofill Angel Stamatov

Bienvenidos/as a Tierra Bomba!

Interview with Ana Bjork Cultural life in the city

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Green Army Workcamp

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A day in the kindergarden University life in Iceland

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Bienvenidos/as a Tierra Bomba!

If you've never heard of this place, the information provided by Google does not do it justice. Tierra Bomba es mucho mรกs. The limited entries found are mostly about the exotic and beautiful hotels you can find there. But despite its tropical climate, breathtaking beaches and amicable natives, Tierra Bomba is not yet on the normal tourist trail and its many social struggles are unknown.

The population of Tierra Bomba sustains itself on fishery and tourism; unfortunately there isn't enough fish or visitors to create enough revenue for everyone. This has resulted in the people of Tierra Bomba striving to survive by selling coconut water and necklaces, and giving massages to the tourists in the nearby area of Cartagena De Indias.

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Off the coast of Colombia, this magnificent island of 9000 inhabitants is in dire need of help. To prevent an increase in child prostitution and drug dealing, WWF are sending Icelandic volunteers to enhance the quality of life of the natives. Their main aim is to help the island become selfsufficient; therefore their work will consists of working with the children (artistically-organised workshops and English-teaching classes), building houses for the homeless, and generally improving the living conditions.

The involvement of the volunteers is probably most productive in terms of social improvement. However, the assortment of fundraising events will also increase awareness of intercultural differences and engage the integration of ethnicities.

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Coco Reykjavik Shop Walking down Hverfisgata, a peaceful and quiet street, suddenly everything changes into the wild mixture of colours and shapes. Welcome to the Coco Reykjavik Shop! If you thought that it's just another souvenir shop, you're wrong.

What it offers is the opportunity to tear yourself away from your everyday life and travel hundreds kilometres away to touch the cultural diversity of the

unexplored parts of the world. You can find a wide variety of ethnic jewellery, sweaters, gloves, scarves, bags and runic artefacts. Every single thing is handmade and comes from Colombia, Morocco, Turkey or somewhere in Asia.

The main selling point...you won't find them anywhere else in Reykjavik.

The shop was set up about one year ago and despite its quite “off the beaten track” location it has raised 9,000 € (1.5 million kronas). The idea behind the shop is to raise as much money as possible towards the sustainability of Tierra Bomba and give considerable financial support to the projects there. The WF doesn't have any profit from the sales - 100 % of the income goes to the island of Tierra Bomba.

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Cooperation with local companies The Tierra Bomba project will receive a percentage of all sales made by a company selling coffee machines in Reykjavik. The target donation is 1.000.000 ISK.

International Events in Reykjavik The African Day, the American Day and the Asian Day were components of the International Days event. WWF invited the population of Reykjavik to experience the

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cultural diversity of different continents. Therefore the event was not only about raising funds but about promoting cultural understanding. Activities included percussion and face-painting workshops and a wide variety of games for children.

Concert WWF organized a fundraising concert in S贸d贸ma nightclub in Reykjavik. This event, which was on the 19th of August, had the support of many great bands such as Vintage Caravan, El Camino, Bjartmar og Bergrisarnir and Haffi Haff, among others. All the profits from the

entrance fees went directly to the Tierra Bomba project.

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“The main goal is to make Tierra Bomba sustainable” Antonio is the Social and Artistic Project Director of WWF Iceland and the leader of the project “Tierra Bomba”. Talking to him, one realizes how much passion and lifeblood he has invested in helping the population of Tierra Bomba and continues to do so.

Why have you been working for WWF? I have worked for many voluntary organisations but I came to Reykjavik in 2006 to lead my first workcamp for WF. I came back in the summer of 2007 and in 2008 WWF offered me a job here.

This was probably because I had been volunteering for so many years and I have lot of intercultural experience. But this is not only my job. It's my way of life, my philosophy. I would say that voluntary work is my lifestyle.

What are your main goals for Tierra Bomba?

Working in Tierra Bomba is completely different from work camps in Iceland, because people's lives are a complete misery. Many things are lacking in Tierra Bomba; elementary things like school and even water. It's important to us to show them that we go there to help them and to contribute positively to their lives but not to impose in any way. The main goal is to make Tierra Bomba sustainable.

Is there a native organisation that you work with in Tierra Bomba?

Yes. Their name is CORPODIST, Coporacion Para el Desarrollo Integral y Sonstenible de tierra Bomba or Cooperation for the Sustainable Development of Tierra Bomba.

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We are teaching them how to organise voluntary work. Spending two months in Colombia in 2008, I had the opportunity to see how poor communities live there. I found out about Tierra Bomba and their local organisation which was full of ideas but of course without any funds, they wouldn’t be realised. That's why we decided to cooperate with them by organising the workcamps. We could provide enough aid, that maybe one day they will be self-sufficient. That way they can raise their own

funds and organise workcamps by themselves.

What are the local’s attitudes towards your work? Do they welcome you or are they rather sceptical about what you are doing?

Of course they welcome us, despite it being foreign to them that someone has the desire to help them. It was hard for them to accept that we had good intentions, but

after a while we became a part of their lives and they actually started showing enthusiasm towards the project. It was amazing to experience that kind of development. Since I'm Spanish, I feel related to Latin America and that I'm contributing to a better way of life to the people there - something that we owe them because of the colonial past.

Have you got a wide diversity of volunteers that are actually going to Tierra Bomba?

Last year we had 25 volunteers from maybe 10 different nationalities. This year is a little bit different because we had a problem updating the programs in the international platform, so we actually don’t have any international volunteers.

However, we have organized a different schedule; we are going for one full month with a group of Icelanders, so instead of staying there as a work camp, it’s going to be

like a missionary mission for one month.

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Do you get lots of costumers in the shop?

Well, I have to say that most of the products that were originally stocked in the shop, have been sold. The only factor which affects the custom of the shop is its location, as Hvervisgata is relatively quiet and not situated on the main high street. However, we are attempting to make use of unexploited resources.

Were there any particular problems that captured your attention in Tierra Bomba?

There are a lot of problems. One of the main problems is that there is a lot of child prostitution. Colombia has the second

highest percentage of child prostitution in the world, with Thailand having the highest. In Tierra Bomba, the children are deficient in life orientation and lack clear understanding of the livelihood standards, as their very existence may well be a result of child prostitution. The main solution is to give some direction to the children and to offer them free time activities.

Another problem is that the global climate is changing. This has resulted in a phenomenon in Colombia called El Ni単o. This involves a lot of rain and so we plan to insulate and protect the houses from the heavy rains. Those are the factors we are going to focus on: the children and the environment.

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Do you think you've achieved a lot already? Do you think the natives feel any differently towards their future?

We've only recently developed this project but I think they have gotten to know us. They understand what we wish to achieve and that we actually want to work together with them. I think that all the training courses that we organize for

the children, for example the English teaching classes and origami workshops are definitely new to them. These children have lacked education and the need to truly concentrate. And so this was the biggest task that we undertook. Essentially, I think that we have enhanced their expectations in life.

So do you think that people only buy because they like what they can buy here or because they understand the goal behind all this?

I think it's both sides. There are not many ethnic shops here in Reykjavik where you can buy real things from Africa, so I think it also enriches the costumers to know that what they are buying is supporting the kids in Tierra Bomba, and we always tell them. To every single person that comes in to the shop, we explain them what we are doing there.

“I hope that the project will become sustainable and that many people become involved�.

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Icelandic

Volunteer for Tierra Bomba Annika is one of the Icelandic volunteers participating in the Tierra Bomba project. She found out about the workcamp in the Coco Reykjavik shop. She

was amazed by the photographs, hanging in the shop, which displaying the cultural diversity of Tierra Bomba. For this reason she

decided to engage in a new challenge.

During the one month, Annika wishes to make a contribution to the development of the local society, taking part in different activities such as organising children's play time and improving their English communication skills. Moreover, she will be in charge of doing construction work, painting houses and generally helping the locals to cope with their everyday problems. Annika expects it to be a great adventure but she is predominantly excited about the impact that her work will have on the local society.

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Find out more about World Wide Friends and their project in Tierra Bomba!

Address:

Hverfisgata 88, 101 Reykjavik, Iceland Phone/fax: +354 55 25 214 Website: http://www.veraldarvinir.is Email: veraldarvinir@veraldarvinir.is Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WorldwideshopCocoReykjavik

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THE RIGHT PLACE AT THE RIGHT TIME Inititially planning for an easy summer, perhaps participating in a work camp somewhere in Europe, France or Spain, Anna entered WF with passion and enthusiasm for its mission. Having lived in manycountries, Anna is very aware of and sensitive to the challenges of international integration, NGO development and volunteering. The length of her stay in WF is undetermined, but having just renewed her contract, we hope for her enduring participation for years to come! We sat down with her and had a chat.

How would you describe WF to somebody who doesn’t know what it is in a sentence or a two?

Oh my God. I tried that the other day actually because a friend called me and I had her for

half an hour! WF in two sentences‌ The largest hosting volunteer organization in Europe at the moment, focusing on friendship between every culture, different nationalities. With friendship comes peace essentially. Right? Actually, if we can promote friendship to everyone, we can all see that we are all the same.

What was your best experience with WF? I think the best experience so far is everything I learned from he amazing people who come here. So many amazing people. And what I was most surprised about, or not surprised but I never thought of is that so many of the volunteers come back. And also I love the painting of the houses. I took a part in painting the pink. I was here till late in the night just painting and being a part of every field of the organization. Just being involved in everything is amazing.

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What do you think are the biggest challenges for WF? Well our biggest challenge is to structure our workcamps, we're going to go on a round tour of Iceland in September and work on making our projects even better and improve everything we can improve so next year there is going to be a lot of preparation work for next summer. We have me on board, we might need another person (as well). But I only started in June so before it was only Toti and Antonio. My very touchy project is Colombia ( Tierra Bomba ) and my work is very much centered around that so the last sort of month and continuing on, my main focus is going to be Colombia. We're going in November so I'm working on fundraising, like fundraising concerts and anything I can get promoting the project. I have been on the radio, in the news, newspapers and the gossip papers. So there's big plans, big ideas for the next few weeks about how we're going to raise money for this amazing project because I think it's absolutely amazing. And I really want to go[laughs].

What do you think about WF volunteers?

I think they are really inspiring, they are very positive, they bring great energy to Iceland and they do great work for us. In general I am very happy with the volunteers that come here.

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Cultural Life In the City Workcamp Cultural life is becoming more and more popular among young people

all around the world. In today’s societies, cultural life plays an essential

role; it gives people freedom of choice, rights and different perspectives for most of the surrounding world. For instance, one of those societies

could be found in the distant country of the “never sleeping volcanoes” – Iceland or more specifically in the capital Reykjavik. The city is world-

renowned places for its rich choice of bars, pubs, shops, old taverns, and many interesting places which could not be seen everywhere. The “Ice

capital” is perfect for people who want to be engaged in various kinds of activities or volunteer work, since every year there are many festivals

and concerts like The Gay pride, Culture Night, International concerts

etc. World Wide Friends is a big organization placed in the heart of the capital; it offers different workcamps and occupations, most of them connected to the cultural life in Reykjavik.

One of the WF work camps isabout the Cultural life in Iceland.

The workcamp started at the end of August and came up with a brilliant idea of making a film festival in order to show Icelandic people that WF exist and people from all around the world are gathering and sharing their thoughts and experience. The goal of the festival was to invite as

many Icelandic people as possible to watch the movies together with the volunteers and after that to discuss different topics or just to talk about something.

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The workcamp about cultural life in the city started on the 23rd of August. There were about 15 young people who came from various countries. The first week, the volunteers prepared for the movie festival taking place the following week. The festival was held from the 29th of Aug till the 2nd of Sep, and volunteers named it WW5F FESTIVAL [5F=Friends, Free, Food, Flash, and Films]. They showed some Icelandic short films and tried to start a discussion about the movies and the ideas brought up in the movies. The volunteers split into five groups each had their own movie genre, and watched movies of their respective genres.

Afterwards, the volunteers discussed the films in order to decide which movies to show during the festival. Each group watched around 30 movies to choose the best one for the festival!

According to the team leader, they hoped that they could promote a greater awareness about the projects Worldwide Friends organizes internationally, try to meet Icelandic people, and make them more organized with foreign people. In order to accomplish their goal, they worked for a week preparing the festival.

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When it comes to the beginning of the festival, it starts with decorating the screening room in the morning. The WF organization provides the film festival with five spaces to choose from, including the cafe, basement, warehouse, jewelry shop and the outside garden.

The screening room, which is prepared by animation team, is quite small basement and so the volunteers gather only a few chairs and some cozy cushions in front of the screen. The atmosphere of the room is comfortable and relaxed, it feels like visiting a friend. Several

origami of birds, which the volunteers made by themselves, are hanging from the ceiling. After decorating the room, volunteers divide into two groups; an advertisement team and a cooking team.

The advertisement team goes into the streets and talks to people. They especially focus on meeting the Icelandic people themselves. They do this not only to advertise WW5F Festival, but also to talk with and meet Icelandic people. At the same time, the cooking team makes foods for the audience such as chocolate cake or cutely cut fruits.

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Let’s go to the Tuesday Animation of WW5F Festival. When you come through the down stairs to the screening room, you can find modern paintings which are hanging from the wall. There is workshop of creating animation film in the corridor.

There are several papers and crayons on the table and visitors draw a series of sketches with them. Volunteers gather your sketches and make an animation film while you watch animation films they prepare in the screening room.

At the end of the festival, you can watch your animation film on the screen. So when you finish your work of drawing sketches, you enter into the screening room for watching animation films. If you want some foods or drinks, then you can find a plenty of food prepared for you in the screening room. After watching all films, there is time for conversation about film and so on. It is like a cocktail party so you can feel free to talk about films while drinking delicious mojito.

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At the festival, there were a lot of people from many countries including volunteers of other work camps and Icelandic people. They told us that they enjoyed watching a lot of films, meeting and talking with many other people. And at the end of the festival, the team leader said that some people helped them to organize this WW5F program. Michael and David, who work for the Reykjavik international film festival during three months, assisted the volunteers in choosing the films. Michael comes from

France, and David comes from Austria. They met each other in Iceland, and they came to the festival together.

They told us that this work camp offers opportunities for the youth to share their opinion with each other about various films or cultures. They also hoped that WW5F

FESTIVAL would become the place not only for watching the films but also for meeting a lot of people.

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Green Army Workcamp

Painting for Power In Iceland you can easily experience pure energy from the earth below and all its natural features. The capital, ReykjavĂ­k, is the northernmost capital of Europe and

has the qualities of a great city, the features of a modern, forward-looking society while also a close connection to beautiful nature. But metropolises aren't literally the greenest places on earth.

Because of this sad fact, Green Army's participants will assist Reykjavik city authorities in improving the environmental conditions of the capital, helping their

many residents live better, greener lives and make Reykjavik the cleanest city in Europe.

International volunteers are giving a hand to the environmental department in taking care of the parks and green areas in the downtown area and helping the locals to improve the city's center look and atmosphere.

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ESTONIA LEADS ICELAND Maria is the Green Army's leader. She is twenty two years old and from Estonia. She is studying politics and she has been in Iceland for one and a half month.

Why did you come to WWF? That's a really interesting reason because, I am finishing my university and I have 6 month free

time before graduation. So I was looking for

something useful, something to fill my time doing nothing and therefore I decided to come to Iceland.

Is this your first Green Army’ project? What are

you going to do?

Yes, it's my first project in the Green Army as a leader and also as a volunteer. Since I'm in Iceland I

use to lead workcamps with artistic work but also environmental work and I am going to lead the film festival workcamp. >>

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Have there been any improvements in Reykjavik since the project started?

We are renovating World Wide Friends houses, like Hverfisgata 59 and the house we are living in, close to the domestic airport. We are

also working in the garden and taking care of the WF properties here

in Iceland.

Why do you think Reykjavik needs such a project when it seems to be one of the greenest places on earth?

I think it's important for Reykjavik to have such a project because we are not only working for World Wide Friends, we are also taking care of houses that don't belong to us and painting walls. For example

today we were working in the city painting a wall. We are also working in a special kindergarten, in which they only use natural

toys. In the kindergarten we are going to do some painting, planting

some trees, cutting the grass... and of course we are going to meet the

children. It is useful for Reykjavik to have this kind of help and also for the people how are here spending their free time working in a different country.

Was the project noticed by the Icelandic people?

If you look outside of your window and one day the wall across has

another color then of course they will notice.

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Each year there are many people from the all over the world, who come to Iceland to work in various projects. Twelve of them are involved in the Green Army Project and we interviewed three of them.

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One day in Hjallastefnan Kindergarten Hjallastefan is a kindergarten, which is based on the idea of Margret Pala Olafsdottir (M.Ed.), who was the director of the ‘Hjalli’ preschool in HafnarfjĂśrdur. She used different pedagogical methods such as gender-segregated classes, natural play materials and a lot of positive discipline as a way of training the social skills.

The social skills get trained in stressful situations (e.g. contention for toys), in which the children learn how they should deal with each other. Today the Hjallastefnan organization runs 10 preschools and 3 primary schools in whole Iceland and also 2 in Norway, based on this

pedagogy.

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Hulda Hauksdottir is the head of Hjallastefan Kindergarten in Reykjavík. In the Interview with us she was telling us that she didn’t like the Hijall-model at first, because the separation of boys and girls was so strange for her. But in the 9 years that she is working for the company she has learned to like the concept very much because of its fairness and also because the kids learn from a young age on that everyone is their friend.

The majority of the day the children spend in single sex groups where they work on their own terms. The sex segregation is a simple and effective way of giving both sexes their rightful share of attention.

In Huldas opinion the best thing about the pedagogic is that each teacher has a small group of kids, the same age he is responsible for over the whole kindergarten year. The small groups give the children the support and attention they need.

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Another big difference to regular kindergartens

and schools is that children in the Hjalli model start to learn a second language from age two on.

In the Hjallastefnan organization the second language is English.

In other Hjalli schools they also teach Japanese, Chinese and Spanish as a second language. The teachers are always native speakers. That is one of the reasons Hulda likes the Green Army projects so

much. Children get the chance to meet young

people from different countries. Since Iceland is so isolated from other countries, this kind of contact seems so much more important to Hulda.

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By Jacky, Clara & Doro

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The University of Iceland is one of seven higher education institutions in Iceland. Established in 1911, today it has approx 14000 students and over 1200 staff. Since Reykjavik is known to be the sin city of the North, we talked to some students to see whether the university lived up to expectations and their impressions of life as a student in Iceland. On a sunny day during orientation we were swarmed by conference participants but were able to stoke out a few engineering students among the oh-so-serious postgraduates.

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The first few were two international students, Hendrick, 24, from Germany, and Andrej, 23, from the Czech Republic, both Erasmus students in civil engineering. They had met at an Icelandic language course earlier in the month.

When did you come to Iceland?

H: I arrived on August 1st and went for a three week language course, but don’t ask me please about that(laughs). I’m trying hard tostudy Icelandic, but I don’t know. I have to practice it a lot.

A: Icelandic language is really, really hard.

What are you studying?

H: I’m studying civil engineering. I just started with my masters studies. So, the first year of my masters studies I’ll spend here.

A: The same.

Why did you choose to come to Iceland?

H: First, it was about… the country and to meet all these interesting people and to visit this great town and to… to… see the landscape as well. The second point is the field of studies, civil engineering, which is very well developed here in Iceland, and a lot of interesting topics as well. Civil engineers have many challenges in Iceland.

There are a lot of (engineering) challenges with the climate. Andrey? Why did you want to come to Iceland?

A: Because I can travel all over Europe by car but Iceland is not so close to Europe so it is very, very good to go there now by Erasmus, because it’s not very cheap to travel to Iceland and of course Iceland is a very nice country. And the topics of study are really good for civil engineers here because of the volcanoes, the blocks, everything.

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How are the locals?

Do they have good feelings towards international students like you?

H: About students I cannot do it right now because it was my first class today. I asked, for example, for books. Where to get them, etc. No problems.

I feel really welcome here. Especially the teachers (are very nice), all the offices are very accomodative.

A: I think it would be really hard to be a part of the group because in class this morning there were only five or six people from Erasmus and the other students were form Iceland. So, they were talking to themselves in Icelandic and I think it would be really hard to get to the group. I think it’s going to be ok after one-two visiting of pubs.

Yet we didn’t settle just talking to these guys and also introduced ourselves to a local student. Albeit less chatty than the foreigners, Halltis, 20, thinks that Icelandic education is ‘good’. Halltis hopes that her university days will lead her to something ‘big’ as well. Moreover, she chose the university because it is the BIGGEST. Her major is chemical engineering and she was starting her second year of study now. Since she resides in campus student housing, which she also described as good, we hope that she will have a good time at the university and make good friends and get good grades!

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