Our European Volunteers

Woodcraft Folk is excited to be hosting two young volunteers as part of the European Voluntary Service scheme. They'll be based at Folk Office but get out and about lots to help with Woodcraft groups, projects and outdoor centres. If you'd like to meet them, and share your part of Woodcraft with them, just get in touch! Email tree@woodcraft.org.uk. 

Pavla started her placement in September, and has shared her first impressions below. Read the introduction she's written about herself by clicking the image to the right. 

First weeks

Arrival
I came to the UK on the 21st of September. I’ve never been in the UK before, but I like London so much. My supervisor Rebecca waited for me at Victoria bus station. She bought me an Oyster card and after that we travelled to my new home in Dulwich. I like it very much.
I didn’t have much time to settle in, because Linda invited me to the district meeting which took place in our house. I had a chance to meet almost everybody from Southwark WCF district. I’ve already spent the working weekend with them.

First days
The first days were exciting and busy. At first I explored Dulwich village and Dulwich Park. The second task was to get to the office. Rebecca printed me the maps and bus overview and I found it easy. Probably that’s because of the fact I need to take only one bus to go to the office. I got to know everyone. After that I signed up in the library and finally opened my bank account. We had to find some which doesn’t require the proof of address because I don’t have it.

EVS
I will stay in London for 1 year. During my EVS I will work in two different areas.
At first, I work in the WCF office on Crampton Street. My task is to help Rebecca with Action Projects and also help the groups with them. I’ll do my best to contact every group which is running the project and visit them. The people in the office are very nice and always help me. I know a lot about their work.
Secondly, I work in Southwark district. I help with the Pioneers group. Now, we would like to get more children to the group and plan next activities. I was surprised about the fact that WCF has the age divided groups, but Pionyr doesn’t. I will come back with it in the future and will try to compare it.
As I said above we had a working weekend at Lugarshall Park Farm. We had a great time and did a lot of work. We were cleaning the forest, cutting trees and building fences. It was fine to see young enthusiastic people working very hard.

Living in London
I love the city, its parks and double-deckers. It seems easy to me, because I can speak English and everybody understands me. I had some free time to explore the city a little bit and I went to The British Museum, which is great. I like geocaching and I have got a lot of opportunities to find some caches and also get to interesting places, where I wouldn’t go to.

What’s going on?
Now, we are contacting groups involved in Action Projects. We chose some which we would like to visit and I’ll send the emails to them. This weekend, I’m going to Darsham for the Steering Group and Communications Group residential. I look forward to meet new people. Next week we’ll have a staff conference. And I’m also waiting for Polina's arrival. She is second EVS volunteer and she will be staying in the same house. I hope I will have more fun with her.