We continue our Volunteer stories section. If you would like to join a camp as a volunteer, fill in the GAR volunteer form on our website. We will be glad to see you at our camps!

YANA PANKEIEVA, ODESA

My first camp was in August 2007. I was 21. Unsure of myself, diligent, a slightly downtrodden girl. I had already worked with wheelchair users at basketball tournaments. I was studying to be a civil engineer and until then had nothing to do with rehabilitation. But something about the camps caught me. It seemed to me that I needed rehabilitation too — not physical, but emotional, psychological. I had to learn to talk to people, to overcome difficulties, to make decisions. At certain moments I had to be able to support someone and to listen. At the camp some people helped me overcome my complexes; some were not afraid to point out my mistakes and correct them; and some gave me no such chance. Not everything went smoothly. Sometimes I gave up, wanted to drop it all, my expectations were not met. And nobody explained why…

But the GAR spark that had crept into my soul had already turned into a fire. Turning away and leaving was no longer possible.

I was not perfect. But there were those «activists» who managed to cope with my emotions, my ambitions, my character. They found the key to me. They helped me grow up. Today I understand that the feeling of being cared for is priceless.

Very often people asked me why I was doing it. «They don’t even pay you for it!» they said. Back then, young as I was, I tried to justify myself: I am doing a good deed, and money is not the main thing for me. It was hard to tell the truth — at the active rehabilitation camps I came alive.

September 2009 was my last camp. I left. Far away. With pain in my heart. For the last few years I have been living in Greece. There is a chance to work at camps like these here, but it no longer seems right to me. Back when I needed the camp, it appeared in my life. It set me straight, healed me and let me go on, into life.

Everyone finds in GAR the thing they lack. And do not deceive yourselves when you say «I am going there to help people» or «I am going there to gain experience». In truth you do not yet know why you are going, and you will find out only when you have been through it all from beginning to end.