EVS Volunteer's: Aliz and Marianne Blog

It’s now often enough for deserving the name of traditon:...

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:55:40 +0200

It’s now often enough for deserving the name of traditon: Messzelátó cloth exchange event was organised in our office the 26th of April, with a very selective list of guests (actually the first people who inscribed themselves but the value doesn’t decrease).

The point, as for the last cserebere, was to bring some clothes on a good shape but that you don’t like anymore and exchange them against other ones! Major difference with cserebere, the very few people present and the much more intimate atmosphere as a result, as you can notice!

It will probably happen again, check our website for infos!

Have a very good day!

Marianne

Since the month of January, Messzelato try to organize some...

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:45:13 +0200

Since the month of January, Messzelato try to organize some hiking sessions around Budapest, for the pleasure of members and Facebook fans, or friends of members , family of Facebook fans… In one word, for everybody who is interested in it and wish to meet new people!

The last one was taking place at the end of February, on Janos Hill and our feet led us to Normafa.

During March and April, we haven’t been really lucky with the weather (quite bad until quite late as you may possibly have notice!) and our own work timetable but we arrive to some other plans: the next hiking session will probably lead us to the “holdvilág árok” (moodshaped fosse), that would be a 15-20 km trip. From hospital of Kiskovács via “holdvilág árok” to Lajos spring and “Dömör kapu”, and back to Kiskovács or up to north to Pilisszentlászló!

No special day for now but if you follow our Facebook page or website, there is a lot of chances that you will hear about it!

Photos from there will arrive soon after, for now, you can have an idea of what we have been doing!

Have an excellent day and enjoy Labour Day tomorrow!

Puszi puszi!

Marianne

EVS Midterm Training of March 2013

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 12:53:27 +0200

A little bit of backdated update!!!

This is a little strange writing about it now, but we had so many events and we are trying to catch up and post a little bit about all of them here on our EVS blog.

What were left out from all the blogging are some very very VERY important events in an EVS year and those are the On-arrival Trainings and the Midterm Evaluation Meetings organized by the National Agencies for the EVS volunteers.

Unfortunately because of some governmental problems, the Hungarian National Agency could not organize any On-arrival or Mid-term trainings from the time Me and Marianne arrived until the end of this January. In late January we were already at Messzelátó for 5 months, so
1: it made no sense to do an On-arrival after 5 months;
2: we were told we should go to the Mid-term meeting instead.

So we waited a little bit and when the announcement came out, we filled out the form and voilá!!!
In March we, the Messzelátó EVS volunteers, had the possibility to participate in the EVS midterm meeting in Hungary. The training course of the programme took place in Balatonföldvár between the 25th - 28th March 2013.
The main objectives of the training were:

• to share personal experiences
• to clarify practical matters, problems and difficulties in EVS projects
• to get acknowledgment with the Youthpass process

The program was very interactive, with lots of non-formal educational methods, games and discussions (small group and large group discussion). We learned about the different ways of learning, about the main 8 key competences, we had discussions about how to continue the remaining part of our EVS and brainstormed about future possibilities after the EVS life.

During the program we also had time to do free-time activities (thou the huge snow didn’t really give us a lot of options). We had visits to the local Cultural Center, got to know more about Lake Balaton and the history of the town.

And by the time the training finished, on the last day the sun came out and spring has finally started to arrive :)

~ Aliz

Did you know this? Messzelátó is also organising some pasta...

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 13:58:42 +0200

Did you know this? Messzelátó is also organising some pasta making since last year, with the help of our pasta teacher Virág!

Eggs and flour are the main ingredients, there is plenty of ways to make your home made pastas more interesting, adding beetroots, carrots or spinach for a funny color and a nice taste! Spices also are of course welcome!

See you later!

Marianne

Gardening period!

Wed, 17 Apr 2013 14:05:00 +0200

Now than the weather seems to become more like summer than even spring, we will continue the gardening! This year it was in middle March that we put our feet (and tools) in the garden for the first time.

On the other hand, we start at the beginning of April to grow bigger our indoor and outdoor office garden. Some of the plants quite resist this still on winter and dead ones still leave us with seeds to put back in soil.

The worms are alive, healthy and their indoor winter time let them occasions to make a lot of babies!

We have been waiting for the spring a long long time but we are not disapointed!

Marianne

Plant Exchange - first of many in 2013

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 16:22:00 +0200

Spring is here!!! The season of planting has begun!!!

This time, Messzelátó Association, on its regular Spring Plant-Exchange combined forces with MÜSZI and the Cothes Swaps that they are organizing.
In this regard people could not only exchange potted little green friends with each other but could also go home with a new wardrobe, or home deco.

The new concept in the Messzelátó-MÜSZI event was that you could exchange anything to anything! Skirts to plants, toys for seeds, sprouts for necklaces, etc. Everyone received coupons on which it was marked the number of items they brought; this could be then exchanged to the same number/amount of clothes, books, plants, etc. In case people couldn’t exchnage all their items, the coupons can be used next time at the MÜSZI Clothes Swaps.

A lot of people came, there were lots of clothes, books, plants and seeds to exchange!
The plants that didn’t get an owner are in the care of Messzelátó untill the next plant exchange and are growing happily :)

The left over clothes are selected and kept until the next Clothes Swap at MÜSZI and some of them will be upcycled.

We will organize again our own Messzelátó Clothes Swap event on the 26th April 2013, between 16.00 - 20.00 at the Messzelátó headquarter :)

Follow us on http://www.facebook.com/messzelato?ref=hl for future events!

~ Aliz

“Craftissimo” - Boost your social...

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:20:34 +0200

“Craftissimo” - Boost your social enterprise!

Between 3-11 March 2013, Messzelátó Association organized a workshop entitled „Craftissimo” - Boost your social enterprise! in Budapest, with the financial support of the Grundtvig’ s Lifelong Learning Programme. The aim of this workshop was to give a chance to disadvantaged persons to start their own social business.

Before the workshop participant were undertaking a 5 week preparation phase with the purpose to get more information, get acquainted with the topics and get used to the terminologies used in business. During the 7 days of the workshop in Budapest, participants were introduced to several local social businesses, they had the chance to consult with the owners of the business as well as with the workshop’s trainers and a business consultant.

The workshop covered topics such as market research, calculating costs, pricing, marketing and business planning and it ended with a two day simulation game where participants had to put into practice what they learned and fit it into their own social business idea.

Between 05/04/2012 - 13/04/2013, Nautilos Sar nonprofit NGO from Cyprus, partner of Messzelátó Association is organizing another training course about upcycling and entrepreneurship with the title “Trash for Cash”.

http://www.nautilossar.org/index.php/en/current-projects/52-trash-for-cash-traiing-course

We wish everyone good luck with establishing their own social business and hope in a follow up :)

~ Aliz

Tea Time Wonderland ~ 17 February

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:17:00 +0100

Restaurant Day once again!!!

Alice was not the only one who got to experience Wonderland! On Sunday, 17th of February, we invited friends, colelagues and other guest to join us in our 1 day pop-up restaurant.

Members and volunteers of Szatyor and Messzelato transformed the Szatyor Shop into our own personal Tea Time Wonderland, filled with sweet and savory delights. We offered a cup of special tea for those coming inside from the freezing cold and some special home made, crafted cakes and biscuits.

Our proposed menu was:

EAT ME:
· Beetroot “flamingo” scones
· Carrot cakes for the favor of rabbits
· Queen of Hearts’s favorite treat
· And other wonders…

DRINK ME:
· Tea selection from the Flying Bird Teahouse

All of our treats were made of seasonal and healthy fruits/nuts and vegetables from local farmers. And since it was the carnival season, we decided to suit up! We used upcycle materials for our costumes :)

Looking forward for the next Restaurant Day!!!

All recipes are available on request ;)

~Aliz

Messzelátó Association organized an Environment Protection Day...

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 13:11:17 +0100

Messzelátó Association organized an Environment Protection Day on the 15th December 2012, on the request of Budapest Esély Nonprofit Kft..

The program was built up of two sessions. The theme of the first session was about sustainability and daily consumption. The facilitators raised the participants’ awarness about contemporary global, social and environmental challenges with thinking games, games that enpowered discussion and discussion groups.

After lunch we prepared a series of creative workshops, where the participants could choose from four workshops and could create their own Christmas gifts: Notebook from waste materials; Recycled Christmas tree, decorations and wrapping techniques; Creating jewelries from paper and recycled materials; Making natural Lip balm in PET bottle cap containers.

It was a really large group, we had a lot of fun and hopefully all participants enjoyed it!

~Aliz

Messzelátó Ajándékgyár/ Gift Factory

Fri, 22 Mar 2013 12:40:37 +0100

Early December 2012 Messzelátó started a series of 3 workshops, with the focus on creating gifts, decorations and other fun stuff for Christmas from recycled, upcycled materials. We’ve been brainstorming on this project and collecting ideas since the beginning of November. I really enjoyed coordinating this little project, it was a lot of fun and I also learned a lot of new things and was able to use my creativity.

The first one was held on the 4th of December with the main focus on Advent preparations. The main superstars of the workshop were notebooks and Advent calendars. Participants were learning bookbinding techniques and learned how to make Advent calendar from toiletpaper rolls and from origami boxes made of old newspapers.

Bookbinding - notebook

The second workshop, 10th of December, participants learned how to make jewelries and toys from waste materials. Some people became great in creating jewelries from plastic materials, others became experts in the creation of boardgames or making small teddybears from gloves.

Making jewelries

Making boardgames

At the last Gift Factory workshop, on 17th of December, we created Christmas trees and Christmas decorations made of paper (mainly old magazines and newspapers)

Christmas decorations from magazines

Christmas tree with the decorations

This Christmas GiftFactory was hopefully not the last one @ Messzelátó and hope the new volunteers will also have the chance to organize such a thing :)

~Aliz

Ten points about what the hell to do with plastic bags!, end of the saga

Mon, 21 Jan 2013 12:45:34 +0100

8. If you want to do a party at your place and have plastic bags with some various colors, you can cut them in fringe and install them on your walls as a decoration.

9. Plastic is a really flexible material, you can change their form easily. You can make from it a lot of interesting things. Cutting stripes will permit you to do crochet with it, and for example do another bag with old plastic bags!

You can see more examples on the blog of this lady travelling all around the world, who makes seminars and workshops about it!

http://cristencrochet.blogspot.hu/

Using the same technique you can do a lot of arty things, like necklaces, belts, even clothes (why not?) or total street art!

Sculpture from Miha Artnak, in the street of Ljubljana, Slovenia (her website here: :D The Miha Artnak)

10. One of our first Messzelátó workshops this year was about how to make sandwich wraps with fused plastic bags. Ironing colorful plastic bags together will make them melt and mix with each other, designing new things and up to be decorated with all what your imagination can tell you!

See our article here!

Thank you for your attention and have fun!

Marianne

Ten points about what the hell to do with plastic bags! Episode 2

Thu, 17 Jan 2013 14:12:00 +0100

4. You can give your bags to people who will need it, for example charity or second hand shops, flea markets or libraries. Animal shelters could also need them for cleaning the cages after their animals. Ask first of course, some of these places would not accept it because of risks of contamination made by precedent use.

5. Plastic bags can also reveal themselves useful for packing. If you are sending a fragile package, you can fill it with plastic bags for protecting your objects until they arrive to destination.

6. You can fill your shoes when not wearing them in order to keep their initial shape. Speaking of shoes, if you don’t have rain boots, a plastic bag wrapped around your shoes can work for a while if it doesn’t have any hole in it.

7. Plastic bags can also be fun. Filling it with sand, you can make balls with it and practicing your juggling skills! You can also fill them with other plastic bags, but be careful of not using during a windy day. Broken teddy bears can be filled with plastic bags instead of usual stuffing. Water balloons are classic which are still functioning well in the summer.

See you in two days for the last episode!

What the hell to do with plastic bags!, the saga

Tue, 15 Jan 2013 15:41:30 +0100

There are many methods to reduce drastically your weekly garbage amount: one of them is re-using your old plastic bags as much as possible, from the most simple way to the most sophisticated one.

This saga will include 10 points in total so stay tuned!

The first thing to do is to stop accumulating plastic bags.

1. When shopping, bring backpacks, reusable bags or old plastic bags and be brave enough to say no if the cashier gives you a new one. You will see than nobody will bite you for that.

2. Turn the bags into bin liners. They can replace the usual bin liners for the small bins and can be reused as well on the same purpose in the case of paper bin or plastic bin.

3. You can stock perishable food in it before putting it in the fridge. It is especially useful in the summer time.

See you in two days for more!

Boldog új évet!

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 14:17:00 +0100

Messzelátó team, now complete again after holidays, is wishing you a very happy new year and hoping these holidays were as good as you expected them to be!

Welcome in 2013 and stay tuned!

How to clean your place with natural products?

Thu, 06 Dec 2012 14:46:00 +0100

Such a good question, thank you for asking!

So what to do if you don’t want to buy all these chemicals to clean your dishes and you want to be environmental friendly?

One day Aliz took a handful of soil from one of the office’s flower pots and went straight to this huge pot we’ve been using for the cheesemaking workshops. We had burned that a littlebit. And look!!! Aliz starts to wash this huge pot with the soil…and then the kitchen stove!!!

The results were amazing: pot is shining and has no black burned stains on it and the stove is all white again

When we asked her what is this thing she just did, Aliz was sharing with us some stories about how her grandmother and mother was washing the burned stained dishes in the old times, when all these dishwashing liquid soaps and scrubs were just a science fiction and you couldn’t find or afford anything better.

So we think it is the basicity and salt content of soil that does these miracles.

Other tips from Aliz:

Scald some wood ash, and leave it stay for a day, then take out only the juice and put them in jars. Always pour some of this in your dishwashing water. It last you for a long time.

If you don’t have wood ash, just take some river sand when you go hiking or on a trip. Use the soil from your garden or your flower pots. Sand and soil cleans up really nicely and efficiently the burned stains from your pots.

In the same idea, you certainly notice, eco-friendly people as you are, than cleaning in general is wasting way too much water. This is true but sometimes, what you think good can make you do the wrong choices: it’s still better to use a lot of water if you use at the same time natural products which let the water clean and reusable, either than stop using water but using toxical products!

So more than the soil, there is also other ways to make your own home made cleaning products!

So the question is still: what are these natural products than you can actually use? I am coming back to it!

You will need:

- Sodium bicarbonate (you can find one kilo package in supermarket)

- Marseille soap, with or without perfume.

- White vinegar or alcohol vinegar

How to clean your dish?

In one container add little pieces of marseille soap then tepid water. wash the dish in. Rince in another container with tepid water with a few drops if white vinegar.

For cleaning the flour or the table or the sink…

Marseille soap plus hot water plus one coffee spoon of sodium bicarbonate.

For the toilets:

Put a little bit of sodium bicarbonate in the wc, add 10 centiliters of vinegar, then scrub. let still 10 minutes then flush.

See? Quite simple actually, and much more better for and your wallet and the earth!

Enjoy and sziasztok!

Cheese making time

Mon, 26 Nov 2012 14:47:00 +0100

Hello!

This last thursday was given to a cheese making workshop! And it looks a bit like this, except for the end (hopefully):

“- Science! - Suspense! - Love! - Even more suspense! - Horror! - Strangers coming from outer space! - Mad and starving gulls! - Failure drama… - Camembert operation”

Here is now our own freshly made cheese!

Sziasztok!

Marianne

The WIHOI post (What Is Happening On Internet) of the week

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 14:47:00 +0100

Hi fellas!

The WIHOI post of the week is again about comic blogs. Because this is not only a french stuff, Americans also are pretty good at it, judging by one of the most significant talent and most popular Internet comic writer Matthew Inman and the great success of his blog The Oatmeal.

The Oatmeal website

Matthew Inman is well known for his ability to paint daily life and experiences in the most funny and original way, the main idea is still having the most people able to recognize themselves in the situation he is describing in his sketch shaped comics.

I discover him in June 2012 thanks to a really efficient campaign he starts, dedicated to FunnyJunk.com, a website which was stealing his illustrations without mentionning any sources. After denonciate this way of acting on his blog, he receives a an email from a lawyer defending the incriminated website and asking Inman to give them 20 000$ in damages.

Quietly, Inman decided to answer on this way:

“I’ve got a better idea,” he wrote. “I’m going to try and raise $20,000 in donations. I’m going to take a photo of the raised money. I’m going to mail you that photo, along with this drawing of your mom seducing a Kodiak bear. I’m going to take the money and donate one half to the National Wildlife Federation and the other half to the American Cancer Society.”

This is how he created the association “BearLove good cancer bad”. 64 minutes later, the amount was collected and Inman kept his promise, as you can see here:

As promised, here’s the photo of $211,223.04 in cash we raised for charity

A nice, funny and useful end to a really stupid story.

The location of our first Restaurant-Day was Szatyorbolt, and we, members/ volunteers of Messzelátó...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 18:23:00 +0100

The location of our first Restaurant-Day was Szatyorbolt, and we, members/ volunteers of Messzelátó and Szatyor who really like cooking and baking have decided to go for it!!!

What is Restaurant Day? A day is choosen on the official website for this event and then everybody (so also you! Yes you, who are watching right now!) can participate!

Why participate? Because you like cooking and meet people with who you will enjoy a nice time and good food! You don’t know so much about cooking? Ask some of your friends to help you cooking. You can even ask for a few money for each meal, just for not spending all your monthly money during one evening!

You can inscribe yourself and your daily restaurant on this website: Restaurant Day. Like this you will be identified on the map of your city and everybody can decide to come and register for testing your cooking skills! There is 4 Restaurants days organize each year, you will have time to think about it!

The main attraction, the star of the menu was the PUMPKIN, a truly automn vegetable. On the menu, pumpkin spicy soup, mixed pumpkin and apple juice, pasta salad (with homemade pasta of course) and pumpkin spongy cake (Aliz family recipe). And salad, for adding a little bit of green in the middle of this big orange flow!

We had 17 guests, plus the 6 of us cooking and everybody seems enjoying!

The WIHOI post (What Is Happening On Internet)

Thu, 08 Nov 2012 14:15:51 +0100

Welcome on WIHOI, the new weekly blog post about what happened on Internet from our little points of view!

Are you interested in comics? In French culture? Do you want to practice your english or maybe your french? Or simply discovering something different?

You already know the blog but have you heard about the comic shaped blog? A way for autors to write about what they want by drawing and writing, really popular way of expression in France and United States for example, where comics are very popular and a true and big editing phenomenon generating a lot of money and interest.

From the Belgian/French side, you probably already know heroes like Tintin or Astérix, autors like Hergé, Goscinny or Marjane Satrapi.

Let’s meet Boulet, one of the most famous French comic bloger!

Boulet is writting mainly about his life as an autor/illustrator, his childhood and friends on a funny and sometimes beautiful way. He also let free his imagination to let discover others stories on a dreamy and funny way!

The Bouletcorp in english

Bouletcorp in french

Enjoy!

Marianne

Bird-feeder project

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 17:06:00 +0100

This last weekend we had another bridge weekend (Halloween and All Saints Day). So, how to pass time efficiently and useful without getting bored and doing something good to our environment??? Good question :p

Space? - given

Nature, dry leaves, branches, seeds? - given

Glue gun? - yes

Toilet paper rolls and plastic bottles? - yes

Rope and wire? - yes

Weather? - not so good but we can work

Health? - Marianne is better after her flu. Me? I was in the middle of flu…

Soooo, we made a plan, we put our heads together, i made a sketch, coordinated a little bit and here is the result of one of our planned weekend projects.

I think it was a success, birds apparently like them very much and already cleaned out one bottle :) And not to discriminate the squirrels, I also gave them some walnuts, which by the way disappeared by this morning :)

Do you have any other ideas or DiY birdfeed projects we could experiment with?

~Aliz~