Archive file

VIP No. 1, September 28, 1993

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Volunteers Information Pakrac

Adress:
  International volunteers working camp
  Pedagoska Skola
  4355 Pakrac, Croatia
Fax & Phone:
  00385 46 84 007 (Mark "Volunteers camp")

a) Situation Report
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Dacula, former mayor of the serbian part of Pakrac has been
captured last week by Serbian special forces and was taken to
Knin. He was our negotiation partner for the planned expansion of
the reconstruction project to the other side. For the next months,
it seems to be impossible to start working on the other side as
long as the hardliners are ruling.
Because the Croatian government does not want to accept the
prolonguation of the UNPROFOR mandate which was decided by the UN
security council, the situation is quite tense. At the moment we
don`t know how the next days will look like.

b) Volunteers Activities
------------------------

1. Reconstruction & Support:

- Corn picking
On monday, the new group of volunteers supported a local farmer
and his wife to reap the corn on their field. One of the
volunteers also managed to lose the farmers bucket down his well,
cutting off his only water supply

- Reconstruction
On Tuesday, Vera`s working group helped to repair the windows at
the primary school in Prekopakra (A village in the neighbourhood)

- Reconstruction
Another working group was in Lipik helping to restore a damaged
house. The house belonged to a doctor who is now in Zagreb but
hopes to return to Pakrac.

- Preparation of our new house
After the walls were painted we started to repair the parkett
floor in one of the two sleeping rooms (It`s a funny puzzle,
really !). The glass in the windows has now been replaced, so
there`s now a real `indoor` feel. If the owner of the house
agrees, we can use an additional room as office. As soon as we get
a phone line, we will have our own e-mail station. The next things
we have to do will be to clean the house and to insulate the
attic, so we can use it as a sleeping room.(See also `Needs`)

- Repairing the church
On Saturday, some very voluntary volunteers worked seven hours
with the catholic priest to make a new cement floor in the church.

2. Social Activities:

- English lessons
Because the school has reopened, we could restart our english
lessons. Beginner courses are every Monday and every Thursday.
Conversation courses for the advanced people are on Tuesdays and
on Fridays.

- Games with the children
On Sunday and in the evenings, the volunteers play with the
children on the playground behind the school.

3. Volunteers radio:

As every week on Thursday the volunteers create their own program
from 17 o`clock till 18 o`clock on radio Daruvar. The last program
was used to introduce the new volunteers and to send some music
favorite by the volunteers.

4. Ideas, Plans and Projects:

- Fashion show
A fashion show is organized by the volunteers in cooperation with
local people. It will be at the 9th of October this year. We use
clothes from the sixties and the seventies as well as volunteers
fashion. The clothes are from Red Cross and Caritas. Lots of local
people help us in the organization of this fashion show. The local
press will be in charge for publicity. We also invited some
journalists from other Croatian newspapers.

- Computer course
We will start a computer course once per week, where the people
can learn the basics for text-editing and layout.

- Children`s playground
We want to rebuild the children`s playground which is actually in
a very bad condition. There are already a lot of sketches showing
how we could rebuild it.


c) Letters and Donations we got
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Sascha, from GSoA-Switzerland passed by and left 50 DM. Thanks !


d) List of Needs
----------------

- Games for playing inside with children
- Water color & brushes
- English teaching books
- Language teaching games
- Balls
- Badminton Games
- Tools to repair bikes
- Replacement parts for the bikes
- More bikes
- Insulation material for the attic in the new house
- Washing machine
- Bunk beds
- Tea towels
- Knifes, forks & spoons
- Modem for E-Mail
- Disks for the PC

Money donations are always welcome !


"If war is the answer, it must be a fucking stupid question"

          The Pakrac volunteers, 28.9.1993