Summer Work Camps Preserve Spirit of Comradeship
Around 5,000 will be working at youth work camps known in Estonian as malevad - a tradition held over from the more positive side of the Soviet legacy, in which young people work together in summer in community service jobs.
The custom died in the early 1990s and was then revived in the 2000s. Traditionally, youths would leave town during summer vacation to work in the countryside and spend their free time napping on haystacks.
Nowadays, 80 percent of the jobs are urban and with no overnight stays. Still, there are youth work camps scattered across Estonia, for youths 13 to 26 years of age to get a taste of a commune and build roads, pick berries, help farmers take care of animals and work on cultural projects. Harju County has the most positions available with 1,497, and Pärnu County has the second most with 1,270.
The Ministry of Education and Research allocated 100,000 euros in gambling money for youth work camps in 2011. The national Youth Work Center, an outreach group for youth activities, recommended 45 camp organizers, including local governments and private businesses, for the government to consider.
Ott Tammik