The ‘Volunteering Oasis’ action of planting trees was held at the Novi Sad Štrand today. Planting was organised by the Novi Sad Voluntary Service in cooperation with the City Administration for Environmental Protection and PUE ‘Gradsko Zelenilo’ Novi Sad, within the ‘Bring Life to Parks’ project.

Volunteers from different organisations, with the support of expert staff from ‘Gradsko Zelenilo’, planted 18 different types of trees. According to Vojislav Prkosovački, Head of the Novi Sad Voluntary Service, Volunteering Oasis should encourage the values of volunteering – advocacy for peace, freedom, solidarity and humanity.

The idea and goal of the volunteering oasis emerged after the volunteers were presented with the October Award of Novi Sad. In addition to the award, they received money prizes, and after an online survey for volunteers of Novi Sad from 40 organisations, the idea and the need for planting trees gained the largest number of votes.

‘The volunteering action is important both for me and other volunteers who participated in the October Award, which was used for the purpose of planting trees. Therefore, each volunteer has their tree, i.e. their own mark in our City,’ said Anđela Andrijević, a volunteer of NVS.

The Novi Sad Voluntary Service is a platform for organising voluntary work in Novi Sad. It has been created as an initiative of the European Youth Capital 2019 and ‘Novi Sad 2022 – European Capital of Culture 2021’. The motive for creating the service is the need to have a volunteer staff during the implementation of the activities of the capitals.

Since the voluntary service offers much more than simple engagement of human voluntary resources, it is expected to create a stable city voluntary service. Cooperation with volunteers, organisations and institutions presents a symbol of everything the ‘volunteering’ itself means for individuals and society as well.

Planting trees at the Novi Sad Štrand was implemented in accordance with the epidemiological measures that are applicable in the Republic of Serbia.

Photo: Vladimir Veličković