{"id":2862,"date":"2019-02-14T07:04:26","date_gmt":"2019-02-14T06:04:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelshof-campus.com\/blog\/?page_id=2862"},"modified":"2019-11-17T17:11:09","modified_gmt":"2019-11-17T16:11:09","slug":"volunteers-personlich","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/en\/volunteer\/volunteers-personlich\/","title":{"rendered":"Volunteers | Volunteer Testimonies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Volunteer Testimonies<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
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What is Sammatz?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n…There\u2019s\na question that everyone that arrives here is constantly trying to\nanswer; \u00abWhat is Sammatz?\u00bb \nAnd the truth is, that in a sense, it\u2019s very easy to condense the response into a few key words. We talk about community, friendship, hard work, love, family. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\nAnd so, when\nyou ask the people that are here how to summarize their experience,\nit\u2019s very likely that you will get more or less the same response\nacross the board. \nI have a very deep dislike for this fact, for a very simple reason. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nSammatz\nis the sum of its people, which together, are more than just the\naddition of every single person in it. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nAnd this is\nprobably my favourite thing about this place. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI wanted to\nmake some interviews about the people that I\u2019ve met here, and I\nwanted to transcribe them. And when I started doing this, a few very\ninteresting things happened.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\n1: I\nrealised that I did not want people to promote Sammatz in these\ninterviews. I realised that when people talked about how they arrived\nhere, and how they came to be, Sammatz sold itself. Sammatz does not\nneed to be promoted, because most of the people here, are special in\ntheir own right. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether they stayed here for two weeks, or have been there since the begginning of their lives, it did not matter, because this is where we met, and without this geographical location, I would have probably not met the characters that I am interviewing a few pages down. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The formal definition of \u2018\u2019Sammatz\u2019\u2019…. is just a geographical location. <\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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A 21st century problem<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n2: Community\nliving is not perfect, but it allows for a very organic way to bond\nwith the people you are around. And this is something that in the\n21st century, absolutely everyone has problems with. I am not saying\nthat there is anything wrong with deciding to live alone, and wanting\nyour own space in the 21st century. Not at all. I am saying that\neveryone should make the choice to coexist with other people in a\ncommunity, before they decide to venture out into the world on their\nown. This can be done in so many ways…. Universities, neighbourhood\nmeetings, family gatherings…But what is truly special about being\nhere, and why I would pick being here over any of the aforementioned,\nis that all of the work that is done, is imagined to be done with a\nsense of higher purpose. And this is carried by the people of\nSammatz. And that sense of purpose can be annoying because it really\nis infectious, and you will not want to walk away from a job without\ndoing it after a while. You will never do a job that is not\nabsolutely needed…I have rarely met people who haven\u2019t walked\naway more rich for this fact. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meshing with other people in this community, has a way to integrate them into it in a way that is very rare these days. This is not an insular community. It\u2019s open… <\/em> <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Which brings me to point #3: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n…And it\ntakes a brave group of people to be so open. <\/em>\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nThere are a\n1000 things you could find about this place that aren\u2019t that good.\nYou can find things to criticise. It\u2019s very easy, actually…\n(Actually, if you are in a mood to complain, call me. We\u2019ll do it\ntogether. I will walk with you for 20 minutes and find something to\ncomplain about, like\nit\u2019s my job.<\/strong><\/em>\nSeriously.\nI will add my email at the end of this page and we\u2019ll talk) \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was enriched as a person<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

just by virtue of being here \u2026<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

\nBut that\u2019s\nthe point. No one here built anything or ran anything, being an\nexpert about it first. I doubt that most of the people here that can\ndo any job well, has any sort of education in the subject in which\nthey are competent.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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And excuse me for saying this, but this is f***ing cool. Because with the same ingenuity Sammatzians do their job, they will let you do yours. I made a website,<\/g> and learned how to use wordpress<\/g>. I had no idea how to do this when I came here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\nI was\nenriched as a person just by virtue of being here. I know that anyone\nthat comes here and commits to staying for a while, will too. And\nmaybe you don\u2019t discover a higher purpose or build a rocket. Maybe\nyou just make some cool friends and have a good time. That\u2019s a\npretty sweet deal too, if I\u2019m honest. You should take it. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Get inspired by some volunteer feedbacks, a few entries from our guestbook(s), several interviews (that\u2019s definitely fun), as well as external blogs of people who had been in Sammatz!\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n
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Volunteer Testimonies What is Sammatz? …There\u2019s a question that everyone that arrives here is constantly trying to answer; \u00abWhat is Sammatz?\u00bb And the truth is, that in a sense, it\u2019s very easy to condense the response into a few key words. We talk about community, friendship, hard work, love, family. And so, when you ask […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2378,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2862","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/PaQBcD-Ka","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2862"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2862"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2862\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25732,"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2862\/revisions\/25732"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelshof-sammatz.de\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2862"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}