3rd Kolping Talk: Kolping Youth Community Services

On the 27th of May, Kolping Youth Europe hosted the third Kolping Talk, the online event where members of Kolping societies worldwide have a chance to listen about different topics and expand their Kolping community network. This time we talked about the Kolping Youth Community Services with our special guest Annette Fuchs, head of this organization.

She told us more about the aims of these services. It is primarily providing social service for peace and reconciliation, but also getting insight into the life of other cultures and everyday life of the partners through intercultural exchange, finally resulting in gaining social and development education.

Later on, participants had a chance to hear more specific information regarding the offers of the Kolping Youth Community Services which are workcamps, volunteer services, south-north program, weltwärts encounters, and international youth weeks. Although all of these programs share the same goals, they differ in terms of duration, location, and eligibility for participating. Workcamps last for 2 to 4 weeks, just like international youth weeks that are 2 weeks long. The south-north volunteer service is 1 year long and volunteers live in host families.Most of the programs take place worldwide, e.g. in Europe, Africa, Asia, America, and Oceania. Only theinternational youthweeks take always place at the same location in Germany (Kronberg, near Frankfurt). You can learn more about these programs at https://www.kolping-jgd.de/

After the main part, participants had a chance to ask questions and join the network session to get to know other participants better, to learn more about other Kolping Societies and to discuss the topic of the Kolping Talk. During the discussion, we found out that one of the main obstaclesfor young people is to find time for these camps but because of their concept they cannot be shorter than two weeks.

It was great to get to know better all the chances that the Kolping Society can bring to us and to think more about the adventure that we can join once the pandemic is over.Since our speaker, Annette Fuchs, told us that they are always happy to get to know new participants, we only can recommend you such a great experience!

Katarina Jeremić & Grlica Golušin