Our Work Camp started on 4^th of February, and it finished on 17^th of February 2019. Our team leader was  Manjesh and our group was formed by 5 women:  2 Japanese girls – Kiho and Shinoka, 1 girl from Czech republic, Domeneka, 1 Italian- Lilith, and 1 much older woman of 65, from Italy too, Patrizia.

The camp began at Goa, Canacona. Our group had been living in 2 small huts on Palolem beach, and every day, we have been walking to the nearby small school, where we worked with children.

From the second day of our stay at Canacona, we have been doing some games and plays that involve the children, and we had presentations about our countries.

The students were only 21, of different ages, and it was a good experience working with them, sometimes doing activities that involved the students, all together with our group. We taught them waste management, good and bad habits, the differences between nutritious and junk food, all in an interactive way, playing with the students.

We also worked in the afternoon, making 20 educational drawings, especially concerning issues like saving water and respecting the environment.

The second week of the camp was in Kundapura. It started on 11^th February, and it finished on 15^th February 2019. Our group has been living at the FSL-India Centre, which is about half an hour far from the school where we worked. GMHPS is a primary school of 259 students, a campus where children can do lessons, play on the playground, learning something by computers. They also have lunch like vegetable curry and rice every day from the school kitchen.

We conducted some activities like Karate with Sinoka and Origami with Kiho. We also played with them in the courtyard with some games that Manjesh conducted, very funny indeed. In this school, each of us took different classes and it was interesting adapting our contents to the different ages of the students.

Some of us talked with them on their families, some others had the game about parts of the body, trying to teach new words and expressions in English.  As for other activities, we have done painting for creating a blackboard on the wall of a teaching room. It took 4 days to complete it.  On Wednesday, one of the volunteers from the Czech Republic cooked  the local food which is called ‘mash potato’. On the Friday, the Italian girls and Japanese girls cooked their own local foods which are called ‘pasta with tomato sauce” and ‘okonomiyaki’.

 We visited SLRM project “Solid Liquid Waste Management”, placed behind the school, a very interesting project for separating the garbage and managing it in a correct way. We were very surprised for the organised system.

On Thursday, we went with Manjesh for a tour: we have been visiting a factory, where they produce cashews, a temple, where we also had lunch for free, then another small temple. After visiting Manjesh’s friend, we finished the day at the beach. Really, a perfect day!

Through the work camp, we learned so many new things like their culture, religion, their life and so on. It was a new and wonderful experience for us to have the activities and teach many things to the Indian children. We are sure that these experiences are going to help us a lot in our future. We would like to come back here and join long term volunteer programs if there is a chance for us.