Spain’s Summer Vacation Seva
This summer, the group of young volunteers from Spain combined their vacation with some Seva activities.
One of the activities was about distributing food. The idea originated a few years ago. It was on the celebration of the announcement of Sai Baba as an Avatar, on October 20. Two people of the Sai Centre in Barcelona decided to collaborate with an association called AMASDES (help for the needy amasdes.com), which has been distributing food to people in need for many years. The collaboration has been going on for some time now and one month ago the youth group also started contributing with food, every 15 days
The food is vegetarian and it is homemade. Generally, it is distributed in single-portion plastic containers. Cutlery is also provided. As an example, on Sundays they served portions of pasta, rice with tomato sauce and paella.
People who come to eat get a number so that the distribution of food is made in order of arrival. It starts at 9:00 PM all food (containers, sandwiches, pasta, fruit) and drinks are placed on foldable tables and people of all ages are given the food they choose. Some of the needy go to eat there regularly and have done so for some time. They even help in the organisation of the food distribution. Between 200 and 250 people benefitted from this service on the Sundays since the youth have been collaborating with AMASDES.
Slightly further away from civilisation, some members of the group of young volunteers collaborated with a local association in the creation/construction of a henhouse for the community. The objective is for the villagers to share looking after the hens and also share the eggs they collect.
It was a blessing and a wonderful feeling for the Sai youth to be able to share those moments with new people, and very possibly both groups will collaborate again in the future.
The group of young Sai volunteers became aware that it is not always necessary to work alone to create new projects, but that one can also sometimes help other associations that are already working on social projects, offering their help and service.
Not too far away from the town centre, each family involved in the project will take weekly turns to look after the henhouse. Another great benefit derived from the community henhouse is that people can take the organic waste from their kitchens to feed the hens, contributing, thus, to a decrease of family waste. Obviously, the quality and taste of the eggs is excellent!
And finally, due to the terrible incident in Barcelona this summer, some of the members of the young volunteers offered to donate blood for the victims who were hospitalised. A beautiful humanitarian action from the heart, for our brothers and sisters.