Evacuation of our workcamp in the tent city Bergheim
We expected a lot in our very first workcamp of the 2021 season, but not that the camp would have to be evacuated. From the beginning of July, the international volunteers of our volunteering team of the European Solidarity Corps supported the non-profit Woanders e.V. in the open tent city for children, young people and families in Bergheim near Bonn. In the middle of the second week we received the news: The entire tent city has to be evacuated because the area is threatened with flooding. At this point, we would like to give a huge thank you to all those who helped and, above all, to the great team from Woanders eV, which made sure that our international volunteers were doing well even in this extremely stressful situation and that they could safely travel back to their home countries after a few days could.
Fortunately, the area of the open tent city was largely spared by the flood, so that our second international volunteering team was able to arrive at the end of July. In the past three weeks, they have worked to ensure that among others children and young people from families affected by the flood have an exciting and somewhat carefree summer despite everything.
International help in cleanup work and flood relief
Many places in Rhineland-Palatinate and North Rhine-Westphalia were not as lucky as the grounds of the tent city in Bergheim: Many people were killed in the floods, and in many places the entire infrastructure was destroyed. The international group in our workcamp in the Hunsrück-Hochwald National Park therefore spontaneously decided to volunteer to help. Together with the rangers from the national park, they drove to the affected region and helped to clean up after the flood in Weilerswist on the Erft and in Schleiden/Eifel.
With IBG you can help with clean-up work after the floods
The international workcamp which the Friends of Olbrück Castle invites from August 15 to 29, will not only repair the historic Olbrück Castle as planned, but also help with clean-up work after the flood. Olbrück Castle is located in the Brohl Valley, the neighboring valley of the Ahr Valley, which was massively destroyed by the flood. Our volunteers will help renovate a playground here with part of the group every day, remove screed and plaster from damaged cellars and clean vineyards in the Ahr Valley of mud and debris. If you want to lend a hand spontaneously, you are welcome to do so - we still have 3 free places for volunteers in the camp at Olbrück Castle.
Support environmental and climate protection with international workcamps
Severe storms and extreme weather events such as extreme heat, droughts, heavy rain and storms are becoming more and more common with climate change. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the IPCC, warns in its latest report, which was presented this week, of the drastic consequences of global warming: If we do not act now, we will achieve a warming of 1.5 degrees compared to the year 2030 pre-industrial times. And according to experts, these 1.5 degrees are the limit that we should not exceed under any circumstances if we want to keep our earth in a state that is easily habitable for humans.
The good news, however, is that there is still something we can do to prevent the worst effects of global warming.
Let's take action for climate protection!
At IBG we would like to focus on our commitment to climate protection in the coming year: "Let's take action for climate protection" - under this motto, we want to focus on nature as a CO2 store in 2022. The aspect of climate protection through renaturation, reforestation and protection of forests and bogs is particularly important to us.
We would like to discuss and work on this topic in our work camps, seminars and trainings. How? Through workcamps in forests and bogs, thematic workshops for workcamp volunteers or new collaborations with other associations and initiatives. The question of how to combine traveling to international volunteer work and working for the climate will also play a role.
You can find more information on the IBG annual theme 2022 here.