Viva con Reggae Jam english
The last weekend was a very exciting one. A few months ago I've subscribed as a supporter to a NGO called "Viva con Agua". Viva con Agua fights for a good access to clean drinking water for people in underprivileged countries. In the past few years new water wells were being built in countries like Nicaragua, Benin, Ruanda, Ethiopia and many more.
In Germany Viva con Agua promotes itself with charity concerts, festivals, football matches etc. VcA is even present on most of the big music festivals in Germany, because they have established one easy way to get donations from the festival attendants: they're collecting the deposit beaker cups (in Germany you pay usually 1 Euro deposit when you buy a drink and get it back when you bring back the cup). So, VcA collects the cups from the attendants and gets a donation of 1 Euro per cup.
A few weeks ago I was asked if I could help out at a 3-day Reggae Festival in the town of Bersenbrück in the north of Germany. I was really happy about that. Not just because I wanted to help, but accidentally one of my grandmothers came from this small town, and I have spent a good time of my youth there. I didn't have visited it for years now, and I thought it would be a great idea to see how things have changed since then.
A second coincidence happened a few days later as I told this a good friend of mine. He only said that he's looking out to go to the festival too and he had already ordered the tickets. So I wrote a Mail to VcA that I would be glad to support them there.
Last Friday the festival started of. Beneath me there were seven other people who wanted to support Viva con Agua, most of them were younger than me. I didn't know one of them but it seemed to me that we would get along very easy this weekend.
And this was our plan: First we had to install our inforamtion desk on the festival area. I've never seen a construction as complicated as this pavillion! We had CDs and DVDs and T-Shirts to sell, everything for a donation. Then the festival started at 7.30 pm, and me and my colleagues fetched us some specially redesigned garbage cans with wheels, where the festival attendands could throw in their deposit cups. The system was very easy to understand: Walk up to people with empty cups, tell them what we're doing and ask them if they want to donate their cup. At the end of the day we counted the donated cups and brought them back to the beer tent. At Friday Night we had about 180 cups, which means about a 180 € donation for a water well in Ethiopia.
We all worked and collected cups from 7.30 pm til 2 am, and were pretty tired after that. But it all worked well for the first day, because we had only expected to get no more than 100 Euros. It turned out that my new found colleagues were really nice people and we had a fun time back at the tent. But we had a huge problem in the night: Right beneath us on the camping ground was a Reggae Sandwich snack bar called "Da Sandwichmaker", and they had a SoundSystem and their own Reggae Singer. And unfortunately they were allowed to play music until 5 am in the morning!!!! i didn't get more than three hours of sleep that night.
On Saturday the festival started at 1 pm, so we had to start working on 12 am (rebuild the info desk, repair the garbage cans etc.). We did shift work that day, from 12 am to 12 pm (4 hours a shift). My shifts were from 12 am to 4 pm and from 8 pm to 12 pm, so that I could recover a bit in the afternoon. We had collected about 400 cups that day, which means 400 Euros. But what was most astonishing was that at the end of the day all of the CDs and all of the DVDs and nearly all of the Shirts were sold. That was really great because 100% of the money we earned will be used for the project in Ethiopia. Although this day was really tough nearly all of us went partying that night in the dancehall tent til 2 am, and then we all fell asleep in our tents.
On Sunday morning we started to dismantle our info desk pavillion, just because we had no flyers left and nothing left to sell. But the festival went on until 11 pm , so we continued collecting the deposit cups. At the end of my shift at 6 pm we had collected another 300 Euros through cup donations which was really great, and my colleagues continued until 11 pm. In total we had collected over a 1000 donated deposit cups, which means over a 1000 Euros for the water wells.
Apart from that, the music was great. I'm a huge fan of Reggae and Ska music, and most of the artists on stage were just fabulous. And one band promoted us on stage and encouraged the audience to donate their deposit cups to us.
All in all it was a great weekend because of the music, the people I've met and the effort we've made, though I must say that I was pretty tired at the end of it. But I'd do it again if I have the chance to ...
blesses to all of you
Ingo
In Germany Viva con Agua promotes itself with charity concerts, festivals, football matches etc. VcA is even present on most of the big music festivals in Germany, because they have established one easy way to get donations from the festival attendants: they're collecting the deposit beaker cups (in Germany you pay usually 1 Euro deposit when you buy a drink and get it back when you bring back the cup). So, VcA collects the cups from the attendants and gets a donation of 1 Euro per cup.
A few weeks ago I was asked if I could help out at a 3-day Reggae Festival in the town of Bersenbrück in the north of Germany. I was really happy about that. Not just because I wanted to help, but accidentally one of my grandmothers came from this small town, and I have spent a good time of my youth there. I didn't have visited it for years now, and I thought it would be a great idea to see how things have changed since then.
A second coincidence happened a few days later as I told this a good friend of mine. He only said that he's looking out to go to the festival too and he had already ordered the tickets. So I wrote a Mail to VcA that I would be glad to support them there.
Last Friday the festival started of. Beneath me there were seven other people who wanted to support Viva con Agua, most of them were younger than me. I didn't know one of them but it seemed to me that we would get along very easy this weekend.
And this was our plan: First we had to install our inforamtion desk on the festival area. I've never seen a construction as complicated as this pavillion! We had CDs and DVDs and T-Shirts to sell, everything for a donation. Then the festival started at 7.30 pm, and me and my colleagues fetched us some specially redesigned garbage cans with wheels, where the festival attendands could throw in their deposit cups. The system was very easy to understand: Walk up to people with empty cups, tell them what we're doing and ask them if they want to donate their cup. At the end of the day we counted the donated cups and brought them back to the beer tent. At Friday Night we had about 180 cups, which means about a 180 € donation for a water well in Ethiopia.
We all worked and collected cups from 7.30 pm til 2 am, and were pretty tired after that. But it all worked well for the first day, because we had only expected to get no more than 100 Euros. It turned out that my new found colleagues were really nice people and we had a fun time back at the tent. But we had a huge problem in the night: Right beneath us on the camping ground was a Reggae Sandwich snack bar called "Da Sandwichmaker", and they had a SoundSystem and their own Reggae Singer. And unfortunately they were allowed to play music until 5 am in the morning!!!! i didn't get more than three hours of sleep that night.
On Saturday the festival started at 1 pm, so we had to start working on 12 am (rebuild the info desk, repair the garbage cans etc.). We did shift work that day, from 12 am to 12 pm (4 hours a shift). My shifts were from 12 am to 4 pm and from 8 pm to 12 pm, so that I could recover a bit in the afternoon. We had collected about 400 cups that day, which means 400 Euros. But what was most astonishing was that at the end of the day all of the CDs and all of the DVDs and nearly all of the Shirts were sold. That was really great because 100% of the money we earned will be used for the project in Ethiopia. Although this day was really tough nearly all of us went partying that night in the dancehall tent til 2 am, and then we all fell asleep in our tents.
On Sunday morning we started to dismantle our info desk pavillion, just because we had no flyers left and nothing left to sell. But the festival went on until 11 pm , so we continued collecting the deposit cups. At the end of my shift at 6 pm we had collected another 300 Euros through cup donations which was really great, and my colleagues continued until 11 pm. In total we had collected over a 1000 donated deposit cups, which means over a 1000 Euros for the water wells.
Apart from that, the music was great. I'm a huge fan of Reggae and Ska music, and most of the artists on stage were just fabulous. And one band promoted us on stage and encouraged the audience to donate their deposit cups to us.
All in all it was a great weekend because of the music, the people I've met and the effort we've made, though I must say that I was pretty tired at the end of it. But I'd do it again if I have the chance to ...
blesses to all of you
Ingo
teegernseher82 - 13. Aug, 05:34
