Thanks to my year of European Voluntary Service (EVS) in YEE's office in Prague I got to know the "Youth in Action" programme and all its funding opportunities. The Czech Republic gave me as well the chance to get to know and experience a formula that was new to me: volunteering weekends for the protection of the environment and the historical heritage.

I realized we were missing such a thing in Cantabria, my region in Spain. So I asked for some help to YEE and to Ser Joven, my EVS sending organisation, I involved 3 other ex-EVS volunteers in Spain and we started writing an application for a "Youth Initiative".

That is how "Manucas" was born. The main objectives of this youth initiative are to promote the protection of the environment, voluntary work and more active youth participation through the organisation of volunteering weekends with local NGO's.

Once we got the project approved in May 2012 it was just a matter of hard work. We started contacting organisations in Cantabria, designing the promotional materials, spreading the word among young people and institutions...

One month after, we were happy to announce the first volunteering weekend or as we call it here "fin de seManuca". A group of 17 volunteers spent their weekend helping the NGO "Fundación Naturaleza y Hombre" with the reforestation of an area damaged by fires.

After the success of this first "fin de seManuca", we organized three more volunteering weekends with several NGO's that work in different fields: natural building, permaculture, reforestation of dunes, water monitoring in rivers...

And there is still more in Manucas' agenda. By the end of October we will get hands dirty removing invasive exotic plants from dunes with the NGO "SEO Bird Life". By November we are planning a big party to gather all the courageous and hard working volunteers who supported us from our first steps and all along the youth initiative.

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Mercedes Fioravanti

Check what Mercedes did during her EVS project in YEE.