Volunteering for the conservation of biodiversity and the environment
It's been two months since I finished my 4-month volunteering in Catalunya, Spain. It wasn't my first experience living abroad but it was definitely one of the best ones. I was already waiting for the perfect long-term project, I really wanted to travel in Spain and learn the language while I can work with children and/or animals, so when Kincső from Youth Bridges Budapest sent me the infopack of this project I knew this is THE ONE.
The project originally started in February 2023, I joined the team from July till November, with the hosting organization GEPEC-Edc, a Catalan ecological organization.
Finca Canyadell:
The main attribute of the project was for 8 people to live together on a land between two small Catalan towns on the beach, where we would take care of the farm, garden, plants and animals. The other part of the project was different for everyone, varied between administrative work, local environmental research, managing social media and helping with the environmental education – this one was my job.
Normally we had 2 days per week when we were working all together on the farm, maintaining the whole little paradise, planting new indigenous plants, as well as weeding out the invasive ones, to keep and stabilize the biodiversity on the whole land. We also looked after our small but fertile vegetable garden, and used the veggies later in our dinner.
The other days of the week we were all working on our specialization. For me it was always different, due to some organizational problems it wasn’t like it was advertised at the beginning, sometimes I was helping out with workshops for kids and families (this only happened a few times unfortunately), most of the time I was designing games in Canva, as future activities for schools. I really started to miss working outside, so after 2 months of mostly in front of the computer I had a talk with our coordinator, telling her that being in an office is not really my thing and I would like to change something about my role. She was understanding and after a bit of time I found myself in a different segment of the project, I was measuring monumental olive trees – meaning very big, old trees – so they could become protected, and no one would be allowed to cut them out. We were doing this in pairs for a whole month, walking on olive fields from one big tree to the next with a measuring tape for hours. It was fun.
Apart from our duties, since we were all together in an international group, we were trying to make not English, but Spanish as our common language, as we all aimed to learn Spanish and practice it as much as possible. In my 4 months stay I learned more than I could have in 2 years of lessons, and even though my grammar is probably pretty weak, I gained a lot of confidence in speaking, which is usually the hardest part of learning a new language.
Besides the language, living together as a small community was the other goal of our group, we were living and working together, having big dinners and parties, going to the beach all summer, and organizing lot of free-time activities. At the beginning this could get a little overwhelming, living with many people from different cultural backgrounds, habits for longer than a week can be a lot, especially since I joined later on the project, they already had their own little life and rhythm going on. While I was still just getting used to the place and people, they were already feeling at home.
But in conclusion what I have to say is that I met and lived with the most amazing people, I couldn’t have wished for a better group, they became my family, and saying goodbye to them hurts till today. I also learned so much about the Catalan culture, on sustainable living, I learned a lot of vegan recipes, and how to cook it for a bunch of people – the last one is a great skill to master, trust me.
I really wish everyone would have an experience like this once in their lives. Select the project with care, but then go for it, don't hesitate! It will get you out of your comfort zone but at the same time it will make you feel like you belong.
Coordinating organisation:
The GEPEC-EdC is an active citizen movement. They fight to stop those actions that harm the environment, while promoting the dissemination and awareness of Catalunya's natural heritage. They carry out restoration projects, habitat improvement work and species recovery, land stewardship agreements, environmental education programs and an activity agenda open to everyone.
Volunteering for the conservation of biodiversity and the environment in southern Catalonia 2023
Date: July - November 2023
Volunteer: Karolt Dosa
