“International Volunteering Kitchen”

With this culinary reason, a group of 36 activists from 20 countries was meeting in Lviv, from19th till 24th of October 2010. The aims were corresponding the culinary purpose – to shareinteresting, spicy and creative recipes of international youth and volunteer work.

Straight after arrival, participants started to work hard on getting to know each other, activitiesand also had a look on the program itself. Getting to know Cheburashka was part of agendaas well, due to birthday of one of the participants – so the program covered wide range oftopics and methods. Large section of it was built around workshops where the participantshad the chance to express their opinion and exchange previous experiences in order to sharetasty, original and spicy recipes with each other, as well as other secrets of creative cooking.The topics of the workshops where: Inclusion - how it works in practice, evaluation tools ininternational youth projects, sustainability of projects, how to make activities environmentallyfriendly, visa problems, how we promote international youth work and use of IT tools, capacitybuilding and networking among organizations, active citizenship, preparing leaders forinternational youth and volunteer projects, international cooperation – and a lot more.

After two long and tiring but fruitful workshop days and the short reflection groups round,the group spent the evenings with intercultural evening, shared their favorite national sweets,foods, drinks and some dance movements; as well as sauna with the refreshing lake.
The program was finalized with common work on the dishes – sharing outcomes of workshops,discussing steps to be made in the future how to improve and develop our international youthand volunteer menu – with enough salt, and pepper.

The project was organized by SVIT-Ukraine with network of Service Civil International organizations and partners, with support of Council of Europe, European Youth Foundation.