Hnuti Brontosaurus (The Brontosaurus Movement) has been organising voluntary work camps in western part of Ukraine, Zakarpattia region for several years as the way to support the development of agrotourism and rural tourism. Every year plenty of volunteers from Czech Republic come to Carpathian Mountains to mark the hiking trails.

The year 2014 was different from the others because of the complicated political situation. Although the place of conflict is around 2000 km away from the Carpathian Mountains, many people perceive Ukraine as not a safe place anymore.
The mountainous region with rare opportunities and high unemployment lived from tourism, so now inhabitants face a difficult economical situation. Despite all these factors summer work camp took place this year too and surprisingly it attracted over 25 young volunteers!

The marking was lead by expert Ivo Dokoupil, coordinator for developing projects in Ukraine and Romania (Czech Banat). Volunteers marked over 80 km of hiking trails in mountains (massif of Polonina Runa) during the summer and autumn camp.
Maybe it doesn't seem as a high number, but we have to take into account that the marking of trails is difficult, demanding and lengthy work. Imagine high mountains (around 1500 meters), unstable weather (temperature around 30 degrees, suddenly thunderstorm, then rain) and difficult terrain. Volunteers have to take care about the rules of marking, follow the GPS track and mark the signs all the time. The group of volunteers is able to mark only from 6 to 8 km per day. Usually they have to travel around 20 km per day!

To let the participants relax we combined work with cultural and experiential activities. This year we visited the open-air museum of the Old village, we slept by the mountain horse chalet, watched Ukrainian movies and played thematic games, we even enjoyed the bath in unique metal cauldrons with mineral water. We contemplated views from the ridges or during the picnics on the mountain meadows, which were the most wonderful moments.

Hnuti Brontosaurus is already planning to organise the Ukrainian work camp again, this summer. Anyway, in case you prefer calmer place, we also help in Czech villages, in Romania and Serbia.
We believe that helping ordinary people is the best way how to change the world to a better place.

Hnuti Brontosaurus team