Project

World Heritage Workcamp - WHC

Code

SJV0848

Date

From September 22, 2008 to October 4, 2008

Participation fee

220 EURO

Project location

Ha Long Bay – Quang Ninh

Persons to contact:

Tel: +84 (4). 719.5080 (Office, Ms. Ngoc- called: Bee)

Mobile: +84.982.499.221

Email

workcamp@sjvietnam.org or info@sjvietnam.org

Website:

www.sjvietnam.org

Ha Long Bay (Vietnamese: Vịnh Hạ Long) is a UNESCO World Heritage site located in Quảng Ninh province, Vietnam, 195 Km far from Hanoi.

Halong Bay attracts approximately 90% of the tourists who come to Vietnam. It's a beautiful bay comprising 1,500 square km situate on the Gulf of Tonkin Gulf on the South China Sea. Though it forms part of the ocean, its waters are calm and unusually emerald. It has nearly 2,000 islands.

It is so magnificent, that after a very short period of consideration, UNESCO acknowledged Halong Bay as a World Heritage site in December 1994. This is the 2nd of the four listed World Heritages of Vietnam.

n 1995, it took no less than 6-hours of driving with 2 river ferry crossings, with inconvenient getting in and out of buses. But still, despite this inconvenience, tourists always included Halong Bay as part of their itineraries.

Today, you can drive directly to Halong Bay without the need to take any ferries and in three hours or even less if the traffic is not too heavy. But tourists love to stop along the way to look at the paddy fields, the daily life of farmers, the clay workmen, the green bean town and the ceramic town that are now situate on the way.

Local legend says that long ago when the Vietnamese were fighting Chinese invaders, the gods sent a family of dragons to help defend the land. This family of dragons began spitting out jewels and jade. These jewels turned into the islands and islets dotting the bay, linking together to form a great wall against the invaders. The people kept their land safe and formed what later became the country of Vietnam. After that, dragons were interested in peaceful sightseeing of the Earth and decided to live here then. The place where Mother Dragon flew down was named Hạ Long, the place where the dragon children attended upon their mother was called Bái Tử Long island (Bái: attend upon, Tử: children, Long: dragon), and the place where the dragon children wriggled their tails violently was called Bạch Long Vỹ island (Bạch: white- colour of the foam made when Children Dragon wriggle, Long: dragon, Vỹ: tail).

The bay consists of a dense cluster of 1,969 limestone monolithic islands, each topped with thick jungle vegetation, which rise spectacularly from the ocean. Several of the islands are hollow, with enormous caves. Hang Đầu Gỗ (Wooden stakes Cave) is the largest grotto in the Ha Long area. French tourists visited in the late 19th century, and named the cave”Grotte des Merveilles” Its three large chambers contain large numerous stalactites and stalagmites (as well as 19th century French graffiti). There are two bigger islands, Tuan Chau and Cat Ba, that have permanent inhabitants. Both of them have tourist facilities, including hotels and beaches. There are a number of wonderful beaches on the smaller islands.

Some of the islands support floating villages of fishermen, who ply the shallow waters for 200 species of fish and 450 different kinds of molluscs. Many of the islands have acquired their names as a result of interpretation of their unusual shapes: such names include Voi Islet (elephant), Ga Choi Islet (fighting cock), and Mai Nha Islet (roof). 989 of the islands have been given names. Birds and animals including bantams, antelopes, monkeys, and iguanas also live on some of the islands.

Almost these islands are individual towers in a classic fenglin landscape which height is from 50m to 100m and height/width ratios up to about 6.

Another specific feature of Halong Bay is the abundance of lakes inside the limestone islands, for example, Dau Be island has six enclosed lakes. All these island lakes occupy drowned dolines within fengcong karst.

SJ Vietnam workcamp in Halong Bay have been selected as pioneer of the World Heritage Volunteers 2008 and to make use of the Patrimonito mascot, symbolizing young heritage guardians, to educate the public about World Heritage protection and conservation. The project gathers participants between 16 and 30 years old from different countries around a common project requiring collective effort and involvement. Specific international volunteer projects organised around the theme of World Heritage. The initiative aims to provide opportunities and tools to sensitize youth organisations and groups to World Heritage, operating in the sphere of non-formal education in general and using voluntary service as a method in particular. It is jointly coordinated by the UNESCO World Heritage Centre and the Coordinating Committee for International Voluntary Service (CCIVS). The project activities have been designed according to the needs of the host community and puts strong emphasis on contact and dialogue with the local population. This two weeks youth workcamp will accommodate from ten to thirty participants.

“This wonder is ground raises up in the middle of the high sky” – Nguyen Trai

With an increasing tourist trade, mangroves and sea grass beds have had to be cleared and jetties and wharves have been built for tourist boats.

Fuel and oil, along with tourist litter, have created pollution problems, which impact on both the aquatic and terrestrial ecosystem of the islands. Garbage and Human waste from portable toilets erected for tourists, finds its way into the soil and water surrounding the islands, once more altering the ecosystem functioning through increased nutrient flow.

Game fishing, often near coral reefs are threatening many endangered species of fish. Often the fish is not consumed locally but exported to other markets around the region.

The delicate limestone cave ecosystems are diminishing as tourists visiting the caves break off stalagmites and stalactites. Litter, including wine bottles, is dropped into cave streams and visitors exhale carbon dioxide, which has a deleterious affect on the caves. The mouths of some caves have been widened to allow tourist access. This increase in light has lead to an imbalance in the delicate links between the flora and fauna, and a decrease in the humidity of the caves.

Definitely, Ha Long bay needs a lot of preservation and protection not only from the authorities but also from local people and tourists. The work camp is first time organized in Vietnam and is part of the “World Heritage Volunteers: Patrimonito rolls up the sleeves”.

The volunteers will participate in various activities related to the promotion and preservation of the World Heritage in Ha Long bay. During the work camp, the local and international volunteers will work to help protecting the environment, to raise awareness of both locals and tourists on World Heritage preservation and to promote the image of Patrimonito, representing a youth heritage guardian. There will be also some workshops in which volunteers have chances to exchange information about World Heritage sites in their own countries, how they have protected them and if there is any problem on the preservation and conservation of those sites.

Places to work are various around Ha Long like collecting garbage along the beach, going to visit the Children Center, play with them and plant trees in the garden, going to high-schools to meet and raise awareness of World Heritage preservation to students, jogging or biking around the city to promote and popularize the images of Patrimonito and environment protection, and so much more.

Our aims for this project are:

• To contribute to the World heritage protection.

• To raise awareness of local people and tourists on this issue.

• To popularize the image of Patrimonito, a youth heritage guardian.

• To promote further environment preservation activities.

• To promote friendship between local people and international volunteers during workcamp (share experiences, skills, things in life etc).

• To exchange knowledge of World Heritage protection in different countries and exchange cultures among volunteers.

1. Meeting time: September 22 At 9:00 am

2. Meeting point: Youth House 1.

• Address: No. 16 An Xa, Phuc Xa Street (near Long Bien Market), Ha Noi.

• Tel: Mr. Tung: +84.949.866.308 or +84.4.7195080

3. How to get there:

Check the document “general information ” at http://infosheet.sjvietnam.org

Local and international volunteers will work together every day during the week. You will be divided 3 teams.

Team 1 – Cooking team: This team will prepare lunch and dinner for volunteers in workcamp.

Team 2 – Cleaning team: Our accommodation also needs to be cleaned up everyday. This team have to clean the house (toilet, floor, kitchen, rooms of volunteers, etc). This team have to wash dishes after meals everyday

Team 3- Working team: Will do all activities in schedule

As it is the first workcamp of our World heritage project, we cannot guarantee for a firm schedule and work. This is to give an overall view of what we will in this workcamp.

As you know work camp is not only to help on environment protection but also is chance to meet new friends, to understand about local people and share your experiences with other people etc so your free time, at the lunch break time, evening or weekend you and other volunteers can arrange many different activities to show about your life, family, country, experiences, etc. with pictures, games.

Some activities should be:

• Meeting for a daily evaluation: To share the emotion, result and also to find solution for the project. It is called study part.

• Vietnamese night: Local volunteers will arrange one night to introduce about Vietnamese food or people, music etc to you.

• International day: so all of volunteers in your workcamp will cook their traditional food and prepare some special things so that they bring from their countries to talk about their countries, cultures.

We will stay in a simple guest house in the centre of Ha Long.

Volunteers in cooking team will cook for everybody in team. Train yourself to cook (and to do the dishes…). It will be great if one day you could cook something from your country (something easy and cheap!). If you need special ingredients like spices and sauces, it is better that you bring them with you. It could be difficult, expensive or even impossible to find them here. Make photocopies of some receipt from your country if you don’t know what to cook

If you follow a special diet, please inform us and your camp leaders as soon as possible.

• http://www.unesco.org/ccivs/patrimonito.htm

• Halong Bay – 2,000 islands in 1,500 square km, the World Heritage

• Halong city page on Quang Ninh province official page

• http://whc.unesco.org/fr/list/672

• http://www.hsc.csu.edu.au/geography/ecosystems/case_studies/2475/halong_bay.html#human

• http://www.cruiseshalong.com/categories/Halong+Map+Location/2/13

• http://www.unesco.org/ccivs/New-SiteCCSVI/CcivsOther/culturalheritage/patrimonito_guidelines.pdf

The organization Solidarités Jeunesses Vietnam (SJ Vietnam) is a non-profit international youth volunteering organization in Hanoi, Vietnam. It is a small organization, set up for, and by young volunteers. In december 2007, 3207 young vietnamese volunters were official members of SJ Vietnam.Our volunteers are active in the organization as work camp leaders, project managers or as volunteer on our local projects.

The goals of SJ Vietnam are:
• Work towards a society of justice, peace and solidarity.
• Break cultural misunderstanding between peoples and nations.
• Improve local and global environment, provide non-formal education, reduce poverty and establish human rights.
• Encourage young people to participate actively in the society in which they live.

SJ Vietnam organizes mainly 4 kind of activities: local activities during all the year (mainly for local volunteers living in Hanoi), international workcamp (hosting and sending volunteers), long term voluntary projects (hosting and sending long term volunteers) and promotion of International Volunteerism .All these activities are the specific tools of our organization to reach our goals about youth education, peace, tolerance, and solidarity.
All our activities are open to everybody: to join our activities, you need only to buy your annual member card or to be sent by a voluntary organization partner of SJV.

Two short video presentations of SJV can be downloaded at http://vietnam.solidaritesjeunesses.org/video/sjvpresentation/sjvnetchua.mpg (in vietnamese) and at http://vietnam.solidaritesjeunesses.org/video/sjvpresentation/sjvpresentation.mpg (in english)

SJ Vietnam is proudly a non-professional youth organization ;except our secretary staff, all the organization is completely managed by everyday youth themselves from Vietnam and around the world. All the local and international activities are imagined and realized collectively by the members. SJ Vietnam is a youth organization FOR young people BY the young people.

All SJ volunteers (national and international) are non-paid. We donate our time for free because we believe in the goals of our projects and they are most important for us.
During the year, SJ Vietnam organizes local activities open to everybody: visit to museums with poor children, lessons for street children, environmental activities, autumn festival for child victims of the Orange Agent, free lunch for poor children, cultural and leisure activities, etc.

Each week at least one activity is organized, contact the secretary to get our calendar.

Feel free to join us, you are welcome!!

SJ Vietnam organizes and promotes international workcamps throughout the year and trains workcamp leaders to run them. The over 40 international camps in vietnam aim to promote:
1. Volunteerism, friendship and solidarity among young people.
2. Awareness of local, national and international issues.    
3. Improvement on quality of life. (Water filters for people living on Red river, free medicine for those with TB, information about HIV and sexual health, leisure and cultural activities, environmental projects, etc…)
4. Cultural exchange by living together.

Each year, SJ Vietnam uses to host around 300 international short and long term international volunteers coming from different voluntary organization around the world. If you live outside Vietnam and you want to join one of our workcamp, contact your national voluntary organization (check the section "partners" on this web site). You can see our list of workcamps in vietnam in the section "workcamp" on this web site.

But SJ Vietnam is also a sending organization : SJ Vietnam trough an international network of partners offers to Vietnamese volunteers the opportunity to join international workcamp abroad as volunteer. At this time around 30 countries are accessible to Vietnamese Volunteers (France, UK, Mexico, Germany, Thailand, Korea, Japan, China; Mongolia, etc). And each year more that one thousand projects are available…

In parrallele, to assure high quality workcamps, SJ Vietnam organizes week-end workshop to train workcamp leaders.

To know more about workcamp, see the section "workcamps & LTV " on this web site

A long term project is a little bit like a workcamp but longer (between 1 and 6 month). More motivation is required from the volunteer but it also provides more rewards. Long Term Volunteerism with SJ Vietnam gives the opportunity to foreign volunteers to join our long term projects in Vietnam .

SJ Vietnam through this network also offers long term opportunities to Vietnamese volunteers to be volunteer abroad.

To know more about LTV, see the section "workcamps & LTV " on this web site

SJ Vietnam is also actif on the internal stage to promote the philisophy of workcamps and international solidarity between youth people. In this frame, SJ Vietnam is an active member of NDVA and CCIVS.