1 rst october 2016
LINK No.81
Table of content
• ABOUT US 4 • K.A.N.E STAFF 8 • MY SENDING ORGANISATION 10 • YOUTH CENTER OPENNING ! 11 • PROGRAM OF THE YOUTH CENTER 12 • INTERVIEW WITH THE DIVING CLUB 14 • RECIPE: Aubergine’s Parmigiana 16 • INTERVIEW A LOCAL VOLUNTEER 20 • HORSE RIDING AND KEPHIAP CENTER 24 • INTERVIEW WITH EVS 26
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EDITOR:
Aurora Passone
DESIGN:
Laura Gimenez
STAFF MEMBER OF KANE:
CONTACT US:
K.A.N.E Social Youth Development Youth Center of Kalamata Plateia Othonos 10 Kalamata 24100 GREECE
Filaretos Vourkos Fotini Arapi Jelena Scepanovic Nantiana Koutiva
TEL:
EVS:
info@ngokane.org
Rüya Hazar Oskar Shrattenecker Aurora Passone Laura Gimenez Rosa Vernooij Renée Hoogenboom Sara Amghar
URL:
+302721110740
EMAIL:
https://kentroneon.wordpress. com/ http://www.ngokane.org/index.php/el/
FACEBOOK:
https://www.facebook.com/ kentroneon/?fref=ts
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About us : Hi, This is Rüya from Istanbul,Turkey. I am 28 years old. I have studied Maritime Transportation and Management Engineering in Istanbul Technical University. Then, i started working on tanker ships as an officer. So, i was once an old mariner, than after leaving ships become a full time traveller and now i am a volunteer in Kalamata until next middle of May:). I am into sports, cultural activities and travel. Hello to everyone! I’ve just took my university degree in Psycology, I love talking and discovering people’s worlds and I hope this is going to be a great experience to do it. I like living in contact with nature and music as well, I’m a singer and I love swing music simply because it makes you happily dancing without realizing it, and this is how everyone should take life in general: smiling, being optimisticand appreciating everything that life gives you, the bad days too! I truly believe that travelling and being openminded with other cultures is the best way to learn more things and to grow up with ourselves.
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Hello my name is Oskar Schrattenecker, I am 18 years old and from Linz/Austria. I am doing Evs in Kalamata. The main reason for me to do Evs was because i didn’t know what I wanted to do in my future so hopefully I get orientation during my Evs. Also since first of January in Austria you can do a long term Evs instead of your military service, so this was a nice opportunity. I started my Evs one month ago on 18. of April and my project lasts for one year, I work in the Youth center of Kalamata. Me and 6 other Volunteers live in an apartment near the Youth center, Hi there, my name is Renee, I am seventeen years old and I am from the Netherlands. I arrived last monday and I will stay here for ten months. My work will be therapeutic horseriding and in the keviab. I just finished highschool and I didn’t wanted to study immediately, then I came across EVS and it turned out to be the perfect thing to do this year. Because I am doing something good and I will learn a lot from it. I hope that when I come back I will have new friends and have a lot more life experience.
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Hi everyone! My name is Rosa and I am 17 years old. I come from a small town called Woerden in the Netherlands. I just graduated from high school, so now I am taking a gap year before I will go to university. I like hanging out with friends, watching a movie, going for a hike and cooking. I will stay in Kalamata for 9 months to work in the Day care centre for autistic children. We visited Kalamata in the beginning of August for one weekend, so we got to see a little bit of Kalamata already. The people here have been really nice, but it is so different from the Netherlands. I hope to become more independent here and meet new friends. I am also looking forward very much to learning about autistic children and how to approach them. Hi ! My name is Laura and I’m 24 years old. I come from a small town in France called Le Thor (yeah like the north god), it’s around Marseille. I have a bachelor degree but I wanted to do something else this year, something that will give me life and work experiences: I wanted to be useful. I’ll work in KANE’s office as the webdesigner of the team and I’ll stay in Kalamata for 1 year; I’m really looking forward to it! I have quite a lot of hobbies; I love to draw, write, read, play video games, watching movies and tv show and so on.
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Kalimera to all of you, I am Sara, I am french and I am 21 years old. Since yesterday, I am a new volunteer in Kalamata and will stay here for a year (maybe more ...?) in order to give some help to the horse riding center of kalamata and the Kefiap as well. More over, I will give french lessons at the Youth Center of the city. I met people I will work with and I am really excited to start being part of the project. Horse riding center is a real peacefull place for anybody who needs to connect his mind with his body. The couple of therapist working there are sensitive and receptive people, so if you have any physycal pain, just go to the horse riding center :) !
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Kane’ Hello, I am Filaretos Vourkos. For the last 10 years I am working in the field of Non-formal education as avolunteer, youth worker and youth trainer. 6 years ago,I decided to create the Youth Centre of Kalamata, in orderto initiate youth work in Kalamata and promote active citizenship as factor for change.
Hi, I’m Jelena Scepanovic, an EVS coordinator in KANE and the volunteer of the Youth center. I came from Montenegro 2012 as an EVS volunteer. I really liked the idea of the Youth center and the work that KANE does, so I decided to stay and be part of it.
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’ staff Hi my name is Fotini Arapi and I am project manager in K.A.NE. organization and responsible, among other things, for all sending motilities (sending EVS volunteers, participants in training courses, interns, etc). Apart from my work in K.A.NE., I also volunteer in the Youth Centre of Kalamata, a volunteer initiative managed by a team of local volunteers. I am very proud of and I love the Youth Centre, its dynamic atmosphere, and most of all, its natural inclusiveness that allows everybody to feel “at home� there. See you around :-D
My name is Nantiana! Im 23 years old. I live in kalamata! I were living for 5 years in patras! I were studying there greek philology and now im teaching greek to youth center in kalamata. 9
MY SENDING ORGANISATION Something you can build on forever Rock Solid Foundation for International Youth work started in 1994 with his first youth exchange with Romania. In 2000 the European Union created the youth programme, which changed to the Youth in Action programme a few years later. This was amazing fort he organisation, because now there was money to spend for intercultural education for young people. In this way they were able to improve their programmes and learn about European citizenship. Up until now the organisation has participated in 146 projects as an hosting and coordinating organisation. The mission of Rock Solid Foundation is to offer young people from the Netherlands and all over Europe the opportunity to discover new cultures and connect to their peers from other European countries. The founder of the organisation is Chris van Maanen. He is very involved in the EVS projects and youth exchanges. He often organises campfires for European and Dutch EVS’ers, which is really nice.
By Rosa 10
YOUTH CENTER OPENING ! On the 19. of September we started the registration for the workshops in the Youth center. The people of Kalamata registered for many different workshops like dances, languages and artistic workshops. The Youth center was open from 6 to 10 o’clock. The first day, Monday, we had more than every other day. Although it was raining more the most people came to the Youthcenter. The EVS Volunteers( Rüya and me) had help from a lot local Volunteers, who helped us with language barrier and the registration in the computer. It was really nice to have so many people in the Center, volunteers and participants, I met a lot of friends I didn’t see in a while. And I met a few new people, it was also really nice to meet my students wich will participate in my German class. At the end of this week we got already 300 people who signed in for a workshop or more, and we still have the the second registration week ahead. I am very happy the Youth center open again, I will meet a lot of people and will have a lot of contact with the local community.
By Oskar 11
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INTERVIEW WITH THE DIVING CLUB
As I am a passionate CMAS ** scuba diver, I would like to mention some about scuba diving opportunities in Kalamata. Below you can find our nice conversation with Anthousa, she has a PADI certified diving center which is also well-known certification system whole around the World. R: First, please introduce yourself, who are you, where are you from? A: My name is Anthousa Engel and I am the owner of the very newly opened Kalamata Dive Center. I am half Greek and half Swiss and lived in Kalamata from the age of 7 till 23 years. After travelling the world and having a family in Switzerland, I came back to what I consider my home, Kalamata, the most beautiful city in the world. R: Why diving is so great for you, could you explain in your words? A: To me diving is fun and exploring, and it is also relaxing and receiving energy from the roots of our existence, water. Water was the first element on earth and it is also the first element we experience as humans in the body of our mothers. So we can all dive, we have just forgotten how.
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R: How did you decide to open a diving center here? A: As diving is my passion and Kalamata lacked a real dive center, I opened the Kalamata Dive Center in Almiros with new equipment and a strong boat for dive excursions.
R: What is the diving opportunities in Kalamata? Could you explain the underwater beauties of Messinia? A: The underwater world of the Messinian Bay - mainly Mani, where I have my dive sites - is full of wonderful rock formations and caverns that play with the light, it has real deep and very clear waters due to inummerous fresh water springs at the bottom of the sea and lots of small aquatic life to watch. Unfortunately it has been overfished and destroyed in many places.
people who consider diving, how they can start? A: It is easy to learn how to dive safely, it is not per se a dangerous sport. It is my goal to lead my students to good boyancy which is the basis for all the enjoyment of freedom underwater.Diving program which is an introduction in theory and practice to the feeling of a dive and doesn’t cost much. When after these one or two dives the student wants to continue, it is a 5-day-programm (not necessarily in sequence) of PADI called Open Water Diver that will give him/her the knowledge, skills and certification to be able to safely dive anywhere in the world.
R: What can be done to promote diving in Kalamata? A: It is my goal to help this unique enviroment recover by example and by teaching divers and non-divers. The more divers we are, the stronger our voice. I recommend to all who are interested in learning to By dive to first do the PADI Discover Scuba. R: Any recommendations for the
Ruya 15
Aubergine’s Pa “Parmigiana di
Ingredients 5 large aubergines 500 ml of oil to fry (I suggest olive oil or corn oil) 250 gr of mozzarella finely chopped 100 gr of grated Parmesan cheese (the original one, don’t trust the imitations!) For the tomato sauce: Half onion , peeled and finely chopped 1 clove of regular garlic, peeled and finely sliced Half heaped teaspoon dried oregano 1kg fresh ripe tomatoes, finely chopped 2-3 fresh basil leaves Red pepper Freshly ground black pepper Virgin olive oil 16 Sea salt
Procedure First of all, let’s cut the aubergines removing the stalks and slicing them up into 1cm thick slices, and put them in a colander, remembering to put a very few sea salt on every layer, once you’ll finish to put all the slices, cover the container with something that weighs heavily and leave it for about 30 mins: the purpose of this procedure is to let the aubergines to loose their natural liquid before we’ll fry them. Now it’s time to prepare an original Italian Tomato Sauce! (capital letters are not random, ehehe) In a saucepan put about 1cm of virgin olive oil, the garlic and the onion (ad lib you can
armigiana (or i Melanzane”) By Aurora
also add a few of chopped carrot and celery) and let it heat on the fire for a couple of minutes, then add the fresh ripe tomatoes finely chopped and the oregano, give the mixture a good stir, then put a lid on the pan and simmer slowly for 15 minutes. Until you wait for the sauce to get reduced, adjust its taste by adding sea salt, black and red pepper, and don’t forget to give the mixture a good stir whenever you think it needs, we want all the ingredients to cook homogeneously and for sure we don’t want anything sticking on the bottom of the saucepan! =) When the sauce became enough dense, take the saucepan off from the fire, add the basil leaves and let it chill. Our fabulous tomato sauce is finally ready! Now let’s go back to the aubergines, remove them from the colander and dry the slices with paper towel sheets, before dipping them in hot oil. A very good habit about frying (unfortunately not very common in every country), is to pat the fried food with absorbent paper: in this way the food will lose some of the cooking oil and result lighter (of course as much as fried food can be, anyway!). Once you’ll finished to fry, we should have all the main ingredients for the Parmigiana finally ready: The tomato sauce, the fried slices of aubergines, the grated Parmisan cheese and the mozzarella finely chopped. 17
Get yourself an earthenware type dish or an aluminium baking tray covered with baking paper. Put in a single layer of aubergines, then a small layer of tomato sauce, followed by a thin scattering of Parmesan and a few chopped mozzarella. Repeat these layers until you’ve used all the ingredients up, finishing with a little sauce and another good sprinkling of Parmesan and mozzarella on top.
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Before serving your tastefull Parmigiana, put it in the oven at 200° for as much as the mozzarella will be melted and the top will become golden, crisp and bubbly, it won’t take more than 10 minutes. It’s best eaten straight away, but it can also be served cold. And now…. Buon appetito!! Enjoy your meal! =)
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Interview with a local volunteer
S: Hi, can you introduce yourself please ? D: Hi, my name is Dimitris Soumis and I am 26 years old. I was born here in Kalamata and has been at school here, then I went to Athens to study computer science. S: Do you work in this field now ? D: Actually, I worked in a marketing company when I used to live in Athens but I decided to change my work path to be my own boss. I needed to gain money but I also wanted to help people in need so I had the idea to fund goodcause.gr. in parallel of my work for different companies. S: The name of the website you created suggests us a lot but can you give more precisions about the main goals of your project ? D: Goodcause.gr is devoted to promote actions and values of NGO, environmental organization, cultural centers and also social centers. Through my work of webdesigner, I really try to spread the concept of charity. If I cant help people personnaly, let’s believe in the work of NGO which sometimes have the mean to act effectively.
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S: Which is really positive for the future. I guess your communication about actions of organizations has a logic. Can you
talk about it ? D: Of course, actually on my website you will always find articles about global problems like hunger worldwide or the increasing of specific diseases for example. But the goal is not to raise negative attitude toward this kind of problem because I also give to people possibility to contact organizations which can do something for the problems discussed. I also publish profils of different NGO then people can know more about them and choose to contact them. S: Do you think this kind of communication is effective ? D: It does not always work. It can be more complicated when it is about collecting money for global or specific actions. That’s why I also talk about charity events in Greece, then people can meet organizations face to face, the awareness of people can be more effective when there is human contact. It’s also a good moment to gather and talk about solutions for global problems. S: You said that you generally write articles about global problems so, do you target a specific group of people when you communicate about actions of organizations ? D: Not at all. Charity as I understand it has nothing to do with choosing who you will help. Neutrality is really important for me. This is 21 what motivates my action as web-
designer. Creating the communication of an organization who help category of people does not interest me. To me, it is also necessary that organizations I help have no connections with any political party. S: Why is that important to you ? D: It is mainly because I don’t want to limit my work to a specific influence. As I told you, I am deeply for neutrality when it’s about helping. S: I can understand. So, neutrality is one of your selection criteria, do you have a set of criteria to choose a NGO whose actions you will promote ? D: Neutrality is one of the most important criteria because I don’t want to help an organization which choose to help according nationality, religion, age or sexual
orientation. I also need to feel that the organization is honest. S: What do you mean ? D: I mean that if an organization needs my help to promote a campaign to collect money for an action, I need to be sure that this money will be really used to lead actions to help people in need and not for personal use otherwise I would feel like I am liar, which is contradictory with the project of goodcause.gr. S: I noticed you sometimes talk about “helping” when it is about communicating for an NGO, does it mean that you do it for free ? D: Yes because this part of my work is only devoted to help. Actually, the fact that I don’t ask for money in exchange some help with webdesigning or communicating sometimes creates difficulties to establish a serious connection with some organizations. S: With what kind organization and why ? D: In general with the small organizations because they don’t give importance to communication, so when I offer them to do it for them for no money they don’t take my offer seriously. To me, it’s due to a lack of communication management. But with the big NGO it is different because they know how important it is to promote values and actions on different support. S: Except this fact, do you sometimes have to face difficulties with this work ? D: Well, maybe some people on internet. Since anybody can let a comment for my articles, I always have to be diplomatic and keep calm even when people express their point of view in a aggressive or rude way.
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S: Does it also happen in your daily ? D: Not that much because it is easier to be mean behind a screen but it can happen; to give an example, if I have a conversation with someone who does not like muslim people and explain to him that I am helping some organization who
helps refugees (with muslim in the group) I know I will have to justify my neutral point of view. S: I guess you have to always keep your self control with some reactions on social media. By the way, what do you think about this inclination that more and more people have to give their opinions about everything on social medias ? D: To me, it expresses a kind of selfishness. I mean that television and internet culture promotes everyday the culture of the individual pleasure, mainly conveyed by food and sex. All this surplus of informations destroys slowly the ability to read informations with filters. Then, without filters you just react about any topic but maybe not in the good way. Some people just write what they think in the moment because they absolutely want the world know what they think but they don’t always take the time to think about they are writing. S: Imagine that your website is really well known and you have many possibilities to help, what do you think about ? D: Well, I have big imagination so let’s say than I can give important seminars about the best solutions to help many people in need or creating workshop to help people who can’t find a job to get more skills then it is easier for them to find one. S: I hope you can reach this goal. Thank you for giving me your time Dimitris and long life to goodcause.gr ! D: My pleasure. Bye !
By Sara
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HORSE RIDING AND KEPHIAP CENTER
By Renée
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Hi my name is Renée and i just started my project and I will stay here for ten months. In these 10 months I will do therapeutic horse riding. At the place of paniotes and Amalia. It is a wonderful place, where they have two horses, Balzar and Melia. But also four really cute kittens. I will clean the horses and assist them when they have therapy with a child. The disability’s of the children are very various and also the age because there are coming really young children from the age of two until the age of twenty. We assist them by making sure the child stays on the horse and by playing games with them to stimulate their reactions.
Some of the games are also to make them move because a lot of them have difficulties with exercising. But also after work they are teaching us how to train the horses. And how you can get the horse to be obedient to you. For now I work there with two other girls, Sara and aurora. Sara and I arrived at the same time and we will be working together for a year. Aurora is already here for 5 months and has almost finished her project. So in November it will only be me and Sara. Besides this we also work in the Kephiap where we will assist the people in the workshops for the children. We haven’t started there yet so I don’t know in which workshop I will assist. But besides that we will also go with the bus to pick up the children from their home to bring them to the Kephiap.
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INTERVIEW WITH EVS
O : Who are you, describe yourself a little bit? L: My name is Laura Gimenez and I am 24 years old. I am a french girl living around Marseille. I have a bachelor degree in foreign applied languages, english and japanese. I have roots in Spain but most of my family lives in France. O: Explain your project : L: I am the web designer of K.A.N.E, I take care of the websites, posters, and Links, the EVS’s online magazine. I really enjoy taking care of those because you have to be very creative and think carefully on how you’re going to communicate. O: Why did you do EVS? L: I didn’t really know what to do after her bachelor degree. I didn’t xanted to start working right away but I was think about maybe doing a Master but I wasn’t sure at all. I really liked my french civic service wich was working with 26 young people and sending them abroad in asian countries.
And so i decided to apply for EVS in Greece to make myself usefull. O: How do you like your experiences until now? L: I really like it. It is quite different from my volunteering job in france because I had to work a lot and do more than I was supposed to. I like my work here, especially to design posters and websites. All in all i really like my experiences until now. O: How do you feel with the other volunteers, local and EVS? L: I have met really nice people here, they are welcoming and open minded. My roomates are amazing, we have a lot of fun together. I really enioy spending time with the other EVS Volunteers and I feel so lucky to be a part of this team. The local volunteers are really helpful and always positive, I feel confortable with them !
By Oskar 27
The volunteers responsible for this publication are hosted in Greece in the framework of the European Erasmus+ programme, KA1/youth - European Voluntary Service. This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication [communication] reflects the views only of the author, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.