SVE en Lituania-aprobado
del Marzo 1 a Diciembre 1, 2015
L.I.F.E: Learn, Impulse, Frame the 'Ecoranger' project
TASKS for VOLUNTEER:
· The volunteers will learn a lot about the park’s territory, environmental and cultural heritage. After that they will be able to work in the park’s visitor centre as guides for foreign and Lithuanian tourists (after learning basic Lithuanian language). They will be responsible to register all people coming to the park’s visitor centre, to help the staff in its improving and making it much more attractive and useful for tourists. Besides, the volunteers will help to install photo and painting exhibitions in the visitor centre, usually it happens 2 times per year.
· The exposition in the park’s visitor centre consists of 3 parts. It includes everything about Grazute: its territory, biodiversity, numerous bodies of water, and opportunities for tourists etc. There is an ethnographic exhibition that contains a lot of very old and valuable photos showing Salakas life in the past, there are also old interior objects that were used by lithuanian people in the previous centuries. The most attractive and famous part of the park’s visitor centre is a unique sea museum where you can see a great collection of sea shells, sea creatures, fossils and sea-themed souvenirs. All these things were collected by the oldest volunteer of Grazute – 86 year-old ex-teacher Vida Zilinskiene. At the moment the number of items in the collection is more than 3500. The volunteers will help this old lady to describe and manage her fantastic exposition.
· All the workers of Grazute are excellent specialists in their fields, that’s why nature and biodiversity monitoring in the park is a great opportunity for the volunteers to learn a lot about it with the help of various methods of work. For instance, together with the staff the volunteers can make monitoring of Birds of prey, Otern, Pygmy Owls, Tenmalm’s Owls, Great Bitterns, Black terns and others. It’s important to say that one of the best Lithuanian ornithologists works in Grazute, so the volunteers will acquire priceless technical skills and knowledge about birds. Besides, there are such tasks for the volunteers as to mark fledglings on the island, to clean nesting boxes, to install artificial nests.
· The volunteers in Grazute Regional Park are doing not only nature monitoring but also nature management in spring and in the end of summer. They discover the EU Natura 2000 ecological network spots and learn a lot about nature processes in Grazute. Usually the volunteers are doing nature management with the staff of the park and also with children studying at Salakas school. Together they take care of the rare plants’ habitats, cut shrubs and trees from swamps, mow prairie meadows, remove shrubs form lake islands to restore biological diversity.
· Thanks to amazing nature and landscapes the park attracts many tourists from Lithuania and abroad. Unfortunately, some of them leave their garbage here. That’s why the volunteers together with the park’s specialists will take part in joint cleaning actions near the lakes, paths, trails and places for camping.
· The volunteers will help the staff in landscape monitoring, they will take pictures of pieces of cultural and environmental heritage and mark landscape changes, then archive the pictures. The collected material can later be used for photo presentations in the visitor centre, some previous volunteers had their own photo exhibitions illustrating all the beauty of Grazute regional park. Besides, in summer the volunteers will do visitor monitoring, they will count the tourists taking cognitive paths, visiting trails and resting in places for camping. They will be responsible for getting the feedback from the tourists, it is done with the help of special questionaries in different languages.
· In order to contribute to the park’s publicity the volunteers will prepare small publications, materials for leaflets and the website of Grazute (grazute.lt) about the park in English or their own language. They will also promote the park in internet social nets.
· Environmental (ecological) and non-formal education is an important part of EVS in Grazute. The volunteers will have an opportunity to work with local children and handicaped people. They will prepare educational activities for children of different ages and organize different workshops, “green” lessons, celebrations of important nature events such as Earth Day etc. The volunteers will also help in organizing hikes and camps for children, outdoor activites. They will promote volunteering for local youngsters and will share their experience about EVS and working in different places.
· All the initiatives of the volunteers that will be interesting and useful for the local community will be supported. They can organize intercultural evenings, share their culture, informally teach their language, dances, songs, customs and traditions. They can make any actions of environmental protection, hikes and many other activities together with local people and park stuff.
ÁNIMO Y A PARTICIPAR!