Category: Solidarity for Lugoj

We are in the last week and everyone is active. The team is working hard to accomplishing the finishing part of the Building Renovation. The finishing part of the youth centre includes painting the walls, decoration of inside walls, cleaning all the floors and gardens and fixing the scratched and painted windows. The FITT team also helped us in the last week and some more friends joined to finish the renovation work in time. Even more admirable is the work of local volunteers with coordinators till the end of the day. Our friends showed their dedication, solidarity and worked hard for more than 12 hours on the last day before arranging the opening ceremony day.

Let’s read some testimonies from our volunteers’ experiences:

I was free in the summer and my father arranged for me to join the solidarity program. I really like to work with an international community. I find the work and everyone interesting and I like the schedule – it’s a good balance of work and rest and I find that mostly the minds of the youth are same irrespective of their culture and location. (Radu Jidovin, volunteer from the local community)

The last week was full of activeness and integration, it was the week of achievement. All the members were really working hard to contribute on their behalf to the project. On the last day, at the opening ceremony, I felt proud of myself and my whole volunteering team for their contribution. We worked, learned from each other and enjoyed ourselves together. (Hussein Abdo, Iraq)

In the last week, we made efforts with full zeal and zest to finish the work. The FITT team also helped us and that was encouraging to me and my friends. We painted the interior and exterior of the walls, cleaned the floors and arranged the whole centre for the first ceremony program. It was a great experience for me. I made new friends and I find the program interesting to learn a lot about social life. (Muhammad Usman, Pakistan)

The last week of work finished with the inauguration of the youth centre. Here are some captures of the results of our work:

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You can find out more about the project on its website.

During the renovation of the building in the 4^th week in Lugoj, we were no more working in groups, but rather everyone was joining some company and started to work while laughing and talking to each other. We worked a lot on walls and windows, we cleaned them and started painting, and the colleagues were really enjoying it. We learnt how to scratch and how to paint. We got some electricity problems and water shortage but it got fixed in the same week. 

The community engagement for this week was quite successful and we got three new volunteers from the local community. But not everyone was satisfied with the work progress. The team members were getting closer to each other and after work, we were arranging parties and celebrating teammate’s birthdays. It was the reason that progress in work was a bit slower but the solidarity among us got stronger by celebrating events together so the planning for the next week was to finish the painting and scratching the windows.

Here are some personal opinions of teammates about the progress of work:

I am happy and enjoying the project because the work for this week was painting and I really enjoyed painting. I felt very happy after painting when it looks decorative. In addition, I like to interact with local people during community engagement, the people of Lugoj are quite cooperative and interesting. (Syed Quosain Haider, Pakistan)

In the 4^th week, the painting was the easiest to do and scratching the windows was really tough but we did a lot of painting and scratching. I am thankful to all team members for helping me celebrate my birthday. Their kind wishes and lovely behaviour is something I will miss after the project. (Irem Aksoy, Turkey)

This week I did a lot of scratching to clean the windows, it was difficult but I worked with my friends and enjoyed their company. Here I really want to mention about cooperative and friendly people of Romania. I find it really interesting that most of the people can talk with us in English and they are ready to help us if we got any problems while travelling. I am happy to work for the youth of Romania because I explored Romania with my friends and one friend gave us residence and served us breakfast when we were left helpless at a train station because of missing the train. (Mohammad Farooqui, Pakistan)

In the 3^rd week of the project, we got our positive vibes volunteer, Yogesh Kumar, back. We started working as one team rather than splitting into four groups. As a solo team, every volunteer helped his or her colleague and tried each group’s task. In this way, we tried each kind of work without getting bored by one work. However, the work was more physical, but being energised by our committed and diligent coordinator, Alex Foale, it became more convenient.  

The tasks that we did this week are the following: 

• Fixing the roof
• Scratching the garden walls
• Making furniture for garden through pallets
• Painting windows
• Scratching and painting of some walls
• Community engagement

With persistent progress, we finished some works this week, like fixing the roof, scratching the garden walls and the walls of the rooms. The roof was renovated by removing extra still rocks and filling holes with cement. Moreover, in the garden we did the scratching of walls, clearing out the excess branches, and setting up the furniture made through pallets. Moreover, we finished the scratching of all room’s walls. These were the first achievements that we received after continuous hard work. Everyone was happy and we got the treat of some delicious ice creams from a school.  

In addition, as the walls were being scratched completely, we started painting on them. But before that, we cleaned profoundly all the rooms so that dust cannot spoil the paint. This painting part was so fun and exciting that made everybody dance. Also, this work was not that much hard as compare to others, as it was under shadow and not that much physical.  

Equally important, this week we did two community engagements with some new ideas to distribute the flyers and that resulted in the addition of three new local volunteers. They brought new energy to work and that boosted us to work more and more.  

To conclude, this week went with lots of accomplishments and achievements; we finished almost 50% of the whole work. This all happened because of our solidarity and incessant struggle. Furthermore, the local community is also energising us by contributing their part, either by donating useful things or by helping us as volunteers.    

The first week of the project Solidarity for Lugoj aimed to build the team and learn teamwork and lots of things necessary to accomplish the work.

So in the 2^nd week, we gathered in the youth centre and the president of FITT divided us into 4 groups and assigned tasks for building renovation. I would rather say building the youth centre rather than renovating, as some tasks really demand real construction.

The teams started work and did their assigned tasks, which include:

According to statistically significant data, we almost finished 30 per cent of the entire work in the first week, which was more encouraging for all team members. In addition, we also did community engagement in person as well as on social media and we got two friends from the local community who helped us a lot during our work.

Furkan, member of group 1

I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard but I find the roof work the most difficult part because we were working under the sun and we clean it thoroughly. My teammates cleaned the room and took out all the old stuff from the roof. We also scratched some parts of the wall and cleaned the floor. The tasks were difficult but as a team, we helped each other and finished most of the hard parts in the first week.

Bidzo, member of group 2

The first day, I felt it is difficult and we took out all the old stuff from rooms like shelves, piano tables and chairs.

We cleaned the rooms and scratched the walls and we almost finished the painting of the walls in the first week. The group was energetic and all members were enjoying at the same time while working together. It was an amazing experience working with friends from different countries.

Simon, member of group 3

We were eight people, the task was difficult but when I saw my friends working hard shoulder by shoulder I forget the hardships and started working with my full energy. We cleaned the room, broke the wooden floor, and scratched the walls and ceiling. We filled the holes with cement paste, cleaned the room and made it ready for a new painting and floor finishing.

Galandar , member group 4

I was excited on the first day, our task was to clean the garden and cut the bushes and extra grass. Our group members divided the tasks and some started scratching the boundary wall of the garden. Others cleaned the garden. It wasn’t that difficult for us and we almost finished half of the work in the first week. The work became more enjoyable when we played music and while working we were dancing as well. That helped us not to feel tired during work.

We are looking forward to the next challenges!