Copenhagen was dubbed as Europe’s greenest capital city in 2014. Byhøst and Sharing Copenhagen celebrated the recognition with the Harvest Festival, which included an 800 meter long table, 37 participants, 9 restaurants, and 2,600 guests! Coincidentally, I was looking for a volunteer work at that time, and through Help2Help, a volunteering agency, I learned about the event. Copenhagen Harvest Festival was my first volunteer experience in Denmark, and I had a wonderful time working with other people before and during the event.
Denmark was an agricultural country, thanks to its predominantly flat plains and many water bodies. But at present, industry is accountable for a huge chunk of the country’s GDP. Steel, iron, chemicals, food processing, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding and construction are the country’s major industries, with industrial production and manufactured goods as its main exports. It has also continued to export fish and meat products. (more on Wikipedia)
One thing that fascinated me when I lived in Denmark was how health conscious most of the Danes are, especially those from the upperclass. You’d find organic and non-organic options for its agricultural products for consumption, and every goods should have a nutrition label on the packaging. 10%, 40%, 90% chocolate? They even invented the bread that is not bread, rugbrød, which is supposed to be very healthy! I do admire them for taking fitness and health as a major consideration, but I wonder if they’d survive outside their comfort zones. 😛
Going back to the Harvest Festival, the participants are mainly organic farmers or food processing business people. So, lots of vegetables and greens and fruits. The festival was held only for a day, but I volunteered for two days, helping with the painting of the crates which were used as tables, arranging the venue, and putting up the hay-mascot, and serving as a crew on the festival day itself.
It was a wonderful volunteering experience, as most of my co-helpers speak English and are Danish culture enthusiasts. However, it would be nice if the organizers exposed as a little bit as well. It turned out that the foreign volunteers had to do the manual jobs, and the Danish volunteers were given charge of greeting the guests, etc. Jeg kan godt tale dansk… før, da jeg boede i Danmark. haha Nevertheless, it was worthwhile that I volunteered again in a similar activity through Help2Help the following year. It wasn’t as pleasant as the Harvest Festival experience though.
Here are more photos from the event:
And last but not the least, I had my 3 second fame in the promotional video! 😀 (1:30-32)
I went searching for volunteer experiences here in Norway, but did not find one that doesn’t require too much or a membership fee. 😛 Perhaps in the future, I’d joined a Norwegian dugnad. Cheers to that! ❤
PinayOdyssey 