My name is Ryoko Tsukada. I am 20 years old from Japan.
I am studying about foreign countries’ cultures and developing countries’ issues at my university. Especially I am interested in helping people who face difficulties so I often volunteer at children’s nursing home, have been to some places which are suffered from the Great East Japan’s earthquake and visited Malaysia, Philippines and Myanmar to research their difficult situation.
Also, I have been interested in Greece. I knew that there is very long history; many cultures which we share began in Greece, beautiful scenery and buildings by reading books and TV. I really wanted to visit there. Recently I learned Greece has serious problems like refugees and economy, so I decided to volunteer there. Furthermore, I really looked forward to make new friends from all over the world.
Actually, I did not have special skill and knowledge about remake old or broken furniture, so I was really nervous about that. First day, we went to the cinema where we remade furniture to clean all stuffs and prepare for the volunteer activity. Second day, finally our volunteer activity started. We were given a presentation by Elix. We could understand their purpose and their vision. I was impressed about the words from Elix.
They gave the reason why they do not make a donation, they support poor people by using arts and other things. That is because if they help people by money, it means development from above. I could understand their purpose of volunteering throughout this work camp. Every day one technician came to our work place, and taught how to design furniture, how to paint them, how to decollate them by decoupage, how to make furniture stronger and so on. We also used many tools like sandpapers, glue for decoupage, saws and many electric power tools.
It was really hard to master many tools and the techniques, but because many technicians had taught us for two weeks, our ability was getting better and better. I am sure we are tired of sandpapering haha :-)
I miss the daily coffee break and slow-moving time in Greece. The last day, we delivered furniture to many people who cannot buy new one. I was filled with a feeling of accomplishment. I hope they like furniture we remade. After that we invited neighborhood and people who support Elix, and had a party. Volunteer members made many kinds of traditional food, we enjoyed eating delicious food, talking with many people and dancing together.
I also enjoyed staying in one apartment together with 17 members from 10 countries. It was so fun that we experienced our special cultures, traditional sweets, meals, and alcohols, played games, slept together, used one shower room, one kitchen and traveled around Athens. We shared everything!! Of course, sometimes we had to discuss about our lifestyle, but our leaders Ergos and Eliza lead us to better direction. I really appreciate them.
Work camp gave me precious, wonderful and beautiful time I had never experienced before. I would like to say thank you to everyone I met in Greece. I miss you guys!! I really miss the time when I was there.
I also could re-realize the joy of volunteering because of this work camp. I am sure that I continue to volunteer.
