“I experienced a different way of interacting with others, a different way of perceiving time, and an entirely different landscape.” When Solveig Vorfeld is asked what she gained from her nature volunteering in Portugal, it doesn’t take her long to come up with her answer. The 26-year-old spent six months in the Terras de Cavaleiros geopark. While there, she supported the park’s office, which organises guided tours and educational activities. Although she has already been back in Germany for two months, the pharmacist has no doubt: “It will only become apparent after some time how my voluntary service changed me.”
Solveig Vorfeld took part in the kulturweit exchange programmethat is funded by the Federal Foreign Office and run bythe German Commission for UNESCO. It gives young people from Germany the chance to spend half a year in countries of the Global South, in Eastern Europe or the CIS states doing volunteer work in the areas of education, culture and nature. They …