Reports
Up to early 2008 the role of RCNUWC in its placement of volunteers in the Western Sahara refugee camps had been to make contact with the hosts, establish that volunteers would be welcomed and given meaningful work to do, and the offering of advice and some training to the volunteers to help them make the most of their volunteering opportunity. Two groups had then gone as independent volunteers - organising all practical aspects of the placement themselves. This meant dealing with visas, flights, insurance etc before reaching the camps, and then establishing routines in the teaching environment once there.
In the reports they submitted to RCNUWC after their placements had finished these two groups volunteers wrote in detail of the practicalities involved and the difficulties they experienced. Despite the occasional difficulties and frustrations both groups expressed a hope that the project continue, but in a more organised form.
From 2008, with the financial support of Fredskorpset in Norway, and the involvement of the Ministry of Sport and Youth/Polisario in Western Sahara, we expect that many of the frustrations will be eased and the hoped-for structures will be put in place.
The blog and reports from Maren Johansen Andrea Gustavsson and Andrea Sjoberg Aasgaard are the first to detail the experiences of Fredskorpset volunteers.
The reports from Max and Mathias recount some of the highs and lows that the writers experienced as independent volunteers and we include them here to give some more 'flavour'.
Reports:
Our latest group, who arrived in the camps in mid-September 2009, are writing about there experiences here.
Our first group of Fredskorpset participants kept a blog while they were in the camps:
Maren Johansen, Andrea Gustavsson and Andrea Sjøberg Åasgaard (volunteering from September '08)
Their written reports will be appearing here by early 2009.
Andrea Sjøberg Åasgaard (volunteered for Fredskorpset from late September to late December 2008)
Max Martensson (volunteered from mid-August to late-October '05)
Mathias Poulsen (volunteered from mid-October to late-December '06)
