Szkoda się rozstawać…

It’s already September 2023. In less than two weeks I will finish my one-year-long journey as an IntegrART 6 volunteer at cultural club Łokietek. Here are the major activities I did during my year in Kraków. 

The biggest part of my work in Cultural Club Łokietek was the artistic cycle TerezArT. Between December and May, I organized 5 cycles of art classes with different themes, including different types of embroidery, ATC (artistic trading cards), or coiling. These cycles consisted of 2-3 weekly sessions, during which people could learn the technic and create something. Classes didn’t require any skills in the given art theme and were meant for youth and adults. Classes were conducted in English for free thanks to being financed by the EU.

Ecology and environmental topics are one of my priorities and that’s why I decided to start a social media cycle called 2 życie tkanin. This cycle consisted of two parts. On the Instagram and Facebook pages of Cultural Club Łokietek, for periods of three months, I prepared a special post consisting of an educational part in which I talked about fast fashion and how to define it, its history, and working conditions. The second part of the cycle was creating products like bags and cosmetic pads out of old fabrics like towels, jeans, and shirts, and filming tutorials that were later uploaded on the YouTube channel of Cultural Club Łokietek.

Outside of my club, I participated in events organized by IntegrART volunteers like an International board game event in Centrum Kultury Dworek Białoprądnicki, where we met with international people of Kraków as well as Polish people, and connected over board games. 

As a team of volunteers, we decided to organize two festivals – International Volunteer’s Day in December, and Kalejdoskop in August. For International Volunteer’s Day, we created multiple activities connected to art, music, and ecology and together with volunteers and international people of Kraków talked about our activities. Kalejdoskop festival was about different types of art. I participated in the overall organization of activities as well as in creating an art workshop for kids conducted by me. 

Throughout the year I participated in different events organized by club or IntegrART volunteers. I helped with artistic workshops prepared by Cultural Club Łokietek during kid’s day, family days, and days of the neighborhood that were organized all over Kraków.

During winter and summer school holidays, I prepared short language and art classes that were part of the winter and summer camps program in Cultural Club Łokietek, as well as helping throughout all daily activities.