For our students it is the most important thing to encouraging their creativity.This is the products from a regular craft cours.The pumpkins, the potatoes, the beans and the onion was gathering from their own garden.Entire work was created by their imagination and mastership.The small kids love to cut and paste some pictures because they want to participate with some things at this activity. Primary teacher Dorina Marin

A Toothbrush makes a difference, Värmdö, Sweden

Jennifer, My volunteer work
What was the project about?
When I attended ninth grade in compulsory school all students made an agreement to volunteer to a school in Russia, in S:t Petersburg. The school is a boarding school and they sent pictures of the school, pupils and their teachers. Their beds looked really uncomfortable, they slept in double beds and the bed mattresses were so thin and they did not have manner bedclothes. I really felt sorry for them when I first saw those pictures. I was chocked that anyone could live a life like that, suddenly my life seemed so perfect! My doubts about signing the agreement was completely non-existent. I really wanted to volunteer to those poor children, I wanted to do as much as I could for them. Even though it wasn't enough for them. Their lives were not going to change, but me and my classmates obviously gave them a memory for life.
My school gave me a paper with all information and all rules about this excellent project. We were supposed to volunteer clothes, toothbrushes, candy and outdoor clothes. And if we wanted to send them other items we had to ask our teacher first, because we were not able to send whatever we wanted to, there were a lot of rules as I said earlier.
All students in my school that accepted to volunteer received a cardboard where we were going to put all our items in. When I packed down all items I started to think about how their reaction were going to be like when they opened up their boxes and reciewed all presents we have sent to them. I hoped they would be happy and grateful, which they luckily became. After a few moths they sent a letter with pictures of themselves when they wore our clothes and ate candy as real sweet tooths. They were smiling big and they looked grateful as I hoped they would be. It felt good to attend to this project, I am willing to do it again if anyone arranges a volunteer project. Maybe I am going to start something by myself, or maybe not. But it was greate to give innocent children something to remember in their lives. They deserve much better, and I do respect peoples who want to take part of a similar project like this.

Värmdö Mates, Sweden

Värmdöpolarna is a unique ten-year-old concept where the authorities work together with teenagers. They consist of mobile units, each group of teenagers have a supervisor and mingle where young people usually get together in the weekends. In close contact with the police and parents their goal is to make the streets safer, avoid conflicts among the younger generation and also to create a network of teenagers. Värmdopolarna also help out at disco nights and other activities. This is a diary that accounts for an ordinary Saturday night.

Värmdö Polarna, Värmdö Mates
by Yanna

8.00 PM we started at the office to talk about the evening and if anybody knew anything that would happen. We were four persons who were working that night, it was our boss Anders, Micaela, Amin and me.Later we were going to McDonalds to eat our dinner, finally! After we have eaten we met up with Gustavsberg's nightwalkers to say hello and explain to the parents that don't know what we do when we are working with all the teenagers.

We continued to Ingarö to visit their nightwalkers and their youth center Brunnen. Then we returned to Gustavsberg to see if everything was alright. When we went to Lugnet, we saw two girls that looked really drunk and we stopped our car to check on them, but when they saw us they started to run. Me and Micaela followed them up through the forest, but they disappeared and we didn't see them anywhere so we gave up and went back to the bus.

When we came back we saw the police and they drove up to us and talked for a couple of minutes, but when we talked to them our phone rang and Amin answered. The people on the phone were really upset and told us to hurry to Hemmesta because some children were standing and throwing big rocks at cars, bus and people. When we arrived to Hemmesta all the children were gone and we drove round all the houses and looked for them but they weren't there so we went back to Gustavsberg to talk to the nightwalkers again.

Amin, Micaela and me had a smoke and Anders went to talk to some people at the pub, Gustav. After a few minutes he called me and Micaela on the walkie-talkie and he told us to come because he has found a girl who was crying and she would not talk to him so he said that we should try to find out if something has happened to her and if we could help her in anyway. We walked over to her and started to talk to her and tried to calm her down, but first she wouldn't listen to us and she seemed really upset and afraid. After ten minutes I asked her what has happened and I also told her that she could talk to us and she could trust us. Then she told us that she had almost been raped by five boys up in Lugnet! Me and Micaela couldn't say a word, we were in shock. All that we could do was to give her water, some blankets and hold her so she felt some safety. We almost carried her to our bus and Micaela told Anders what had happened and he followed us to the bus. She was really scared to talk to him at first, but me and Micaela said that he is alright and he can help her a lot. After a couple of minutes she started to tell him what has happened and he told her that he is going to call the police and she must do a report. I felt really sorry for her, she was only eleven years old, soon twelve, I mean, for heaven sake!

After one half-hour the police arrived and also the girl's parents. It was terrible to tell them what has happened to their little girl. When she had talked to the police, they drove away to see if they could see the boys and after that they went to Södersjukhuset, a hospital.When they were gone, we drove to Shell to get some coffee and something to eat. But we had only been at Shell like five minutes when we saw a lot of policemen, firemen and ambulances on the road to Hemmesta. We followed them and we saw a house in Hemmesta/Kolvik on fire. When we arrived all the people in the house were safe and they were not hurt, thank God. After we had helped the police to keep people away from the house, we worked for another half-hour and then we went home.

This, I work with almost every weekend. It is the best job in the world, (right now) :)I love it because I meet new teenagers every time I work and it's really fun to see them when they are in a really good mood and I really like to help other people. I can honestly say that I hope that more teenagers will work with this and I hope that they and the adults appreciate what we are doing on the weekends!

The tournament of social care houses in Szczecinek, Poland

Once again there has been in Szczecinek a tournament of social care houses in table tennis. The main aim of the competition was a good entertainment and integration of sick people and healthy people. The organizers of the competition deserve admiration, because all event was excellent and everyone had a good time.

Our school has worked with 'Walentynka' , the house of social care, for a few years and that's why we were asked for help to be the referees of the tournament.

There were a lot of spectators who were supporting their favourite players. Each player got a diploma for the participation and the best players received awards.

The meeting ended up with a sweet spirit and all were happy they could be there. The organizers promised to organize a similar tournament next year. So we are waiting for it impatiently. We, as the students, had a wonderful time and we are glad that we could integrate with those people.

The referees: Jakub Sekulski, Wojtek Gersztyn, Wojtek Liniewicz

Operation Dagsverke, Värmdö, Sweden

Operation Dagsverke is an information and collection campaign










The organization was formed in 1961 and since then they have collected over a 100 million crowns. Operation Dagsverke is an organization where children all over Sweden collect money to the benefit of other children. The organization is spread all over the world today. There are many schools involved; their goal is to make a difference in the world. The money should go to poor children, children that don’t have the same chances like us. Every child should have the opportunity to go to school, but in the world we are living in today, that’s not something you can take for granted..

Operation Dagsverke’s message to the world is that “Children help children”. Every child is making money on their own by working at different places. They are doing that because they want to.

Schools all over the world are only doing this once a year, so in my opinion I think we should give them everything we earn that day. There are so many kids out there and they need us, many of us here in Sweden don’t think that making money is necessary; they think that we are just wasting our time. But that’s not true, if every school in Sweden would be involved, that would give so many children a better chance for a fair way of living.

Operation Dagsverke is a unique collection, because all the work is made by pupils. Education is the ground in our society, that’s why it’s so important that we work for justice. Operation Dagsverke is focusing on different things every year, they are focusing on countries that are in special needs. It’s a good way for us in Sweden to learn about other countrie’s situations, we have to realize how unfair the world is.

When I attended 9th grad in compulsory school, we left school for one day in May to work and collect money to kids in Kongo. I was working at home, painted our fence. My mother and father gave me 200 crowns for that, and I gave it all to my school. Of course that’s not a big sum, but it can make a difference because we were over 300 pupils at the senior level of compulsory school.

I hope the children were very pleased by our contribution. I wish that I could have seen their faces when our gifts arrived and when their new schools was build. I like to help people that are in a need, particularly children. I feel for them and it means a lot to me to be able to give them something, even if it isn’t something big.

Operation Dagsverke isn’t only a good way to collect money, because you are doing something fun at the same time. We could choose all by ourselves what we wanted to do that day, no one controlled us. The most important thing was just that we were making money to all those poor children.

If you keep all the starving children on your mind, you would do your best to make as much money as possible. I thought of all the children that don’t have any parents, who are living on their own, their lives are like hell, maybe they are living on the streets, and who doesn’t want to help them? If I could I would have taken them all to my place and fed them with everything I had in my refrigerator, but I couldn’t and I knew it. But I’m glad that the children aren’t giving up, instead they are fighting for a normal life.

The projects are always education-related, sometimes it’s about building new schools, and sometimes it can be to develop the schools. To be able to go to school is the start of everything and that is why operation dagsverke is so focused on that point.

In the future I hope I can be a volunteer worker in Africa and help children to get a better life. My mother and I already have plans to go there when I have graduated from high school.
Emelie 17

Practising sport

Hello!
My name is Laia. I am 12 years old and my favorite sport is gymnastics.
I’ve been practicing this sport for 7 years and I’ve won some nationals tournaments in my country. It’s great fun for me.
I also love singing ,dancing , drawing and going out with friends, too.

Playing sports, learning languages and playing musical instruments

We’ re three girls called Mar, Laia and Helena. We’ re friends and we are in the same class. We like shopping very much, but we know that must do our homework and study as well.
In our free time we play basketball. Every Saturday, we play a basketball match.
We also learn English in a language academy. Laia plays the piano too.

Horseriding

My name’s Jordi Carra I’m 13 ears old and I love horseriding.

I like this sport because it is amazing and fun.

To rid e a horse, first ypou need to prepare it (brush it, clean its mane, its tail, etc.) and then you must put the chair and the reins on it.

The only risk is that you can fall off the horse and get hurt.

Here is a photo of me galloping.