Πιστοποιημένος Οργανισμός Εθελοντικών Προγραμμάτων

Having done some short volunteering stints with animals in my home country of Malta, I wished to combine my love for travelling and animals. Thus, started researching on the ESC European Solidarity Corps website for such an opportunity. Sinead Darmanin, Volunteer through European Solidarity Corps program for 2 months from Malta There, I stumbled upon…

I am Lorie, a french volunteer (yess, again…) and I came with the civic service program. I am currently at the end of my volunteering so it’s the opportunity for me to talk about these amazing 8 months I had in Drasi.I arrived at the end of August, to be a volunteer is part of…

Ασχολούμαι με τον εθελοντισμό περισσότερο από τον μισό χρόνο του εθελοντισμού μου. Πολλές εμπειρίες, ανακαλύψεις και στιγμές με περιβάλλουν καθημερινά. Ο χρόνος είναι διαφορετικός εδώ, μερικές φορές φαίνεται σαν να είμαι εδώ σχεδόν ένα χρόνο ήδη. Πιθανότατα συμβαίνει ήδη όταν περνάς χρόνο με μια κοινότητα, φαίνεται ότι θα ήταν δύσκολο να χτίσεις μια τόσο βαθιά…

 At 9:30 p.m., I managed to wake Quentin up and we headed home to Froso to celebrate his birthday with Garance. We brought birthday hats and Quentin was decked out in his confetti bombs. We arrived around 10 p.m., Quentin knocked on the door, When Froso opened the door he set off the confetti explosives.…

At the bus station, we took the bus towards Thessaloniki and more precisely Arsenia’s apartment to drop her a gift made by my little hands in her mailbox. After 40 minutes of transport and walking, we arrived in front of her house but of course the mailboxes were inaccessible because we were in the airlock…

Today we planned to visit museums since it is the 1st Sunday of the month and all museums are free. We started with the White Tower. The weather was very rainy today, we could have had better weather for our photos but too bad, it was very interesting. The White Tower has 6 floors, on…

At 2:10 p.m., we joined Sophia who was in her car, parked at the side of the road. Mondy was in the car and was excited to see us again. We were so happy to see Sophia again and spend this day with her.Sophia tells us that she is going to show us her chicken…

HAPPY NEW YEAR 2024 !

Click to read MY ESC’S PERSONAL PROJECT…

I had a wonderful time! All the volunteers were very kind. I loved my work with the animals and to discuss with my fellow volunteers and the workers. I have tasted a lot of different specialities of Greece, like the different alcohols, but also many greek dishes. On the days, i went to Thessaloniki, my…

Hello, my name is Jessica. I’m from france, nice. I’m a volunteer at Drasi for 2 months. I wanted to commit into something important such as wildlife rehabilitation and also improve my english, that’s why I’m here. I enjoy my time, the work and the landscapes in Greece. During the day I take care of…

Sofia, our mentor arrived at 12 p.m., we did our Greek lesson, we are real children during our lesson, we are always annoying each other. Then after all the lessons, Sofia explained to us all the Greek customs for Christmas and New Year. It was really interesting. Traditionally, in the coastal regions of Greece, boats…

7.10.2023 We woke up at 9h45, Sofia was already to Drasi to do the Florian’s lesson. They were on the kitchen so I disturbed them a little in preparing my breakfast. Thanks Ella to find the lid of my blender ahaha ! I was eating my breakfast outside with my best companie : Adynatos, and…

Kaliméra, we are two new volunteers to Drasi agriazoi with the ESC program. We are a couple and We love doing volunteering. We work for association but also to improve ourself in learning a new field, new culture, new language, new believes, values and thinkings, new rythm of life, new food and in living in…

24.09.2023 : It was a day of work today. There were three foreigner volunteers and one Greek man : Damianos. He is 14yo and his passion is the birds. He has beautiful projects for his future. He is and was really motivated during this day. He helped us a lot. During the morning, a fireman…

A couple weeks ago we released a fox who was there since December. She arrived very weak, with one leg missing. She had lost a lot of hair along her tail, maybe from a parasite ? Or from rubbing herself in the fences trying to escape…? During all this time she was at Drasi she…

We’ve started the baby feedings around april- may. We first got Baby Hedgehogs, 3and we had to feed them with goat milk because they were really small with only a few days. They said that it is really complicated to keep them alive at this stage because they are really fragile. We had to see…

With Églantine we had an idea to do a board and put the name and the logo of Drasi.When we had this idea in September, because there wasn’t any before and everyone is all the time searching for Drasi. It took time to do it, so I did a hole (1). Then we wanted to…

In February, I went with a friend to visit Meteora. We had a beautiful little apartment below the Meteora. In the morning, we woke up and saw the view, it was already amazing. We decided to visit the monasteries early in the morning. The first monastery we visited was Agios Nikolaos. It was one of…

The day I arrived at Drasi, I was amazed by the number of storks I saw. We have many in the outside cages, but also daily visitors who, to be honest, only come back for the food. But what I saw was also a black  stork. I didn’t even know this species ! And it…

I was in biologie bachelor degree in France at Angers, I wanted to be ethologist and doing a master after,but a lot of things change. First of all, my first year at the university wasn’t very good ( my grade were bad), so i decided to dotwointernshipsto enrich my file, I went to a rescue…

Spring is here ! Which means that we’ll receive more babies here in Drasi ! If they are astonishingly cute, they need a lot of attention. In the wild, the feeding process is done by the parents. So until they can eat by themselves, we have to replace them. I’ll tell you about my recent…

Nous sommes parties le 17 novembre au soir, à bord du train Thessalonique-Athènes, pour rejoindre la capitale grecque. Après un voyage de plus de 4h, nous atteignons notre Airbnb, en plein centre de la  ville. Une petite nuit de sommeil plus tard, nous partons en direction de l’Acropole. Sous un grand soleil, nous découvrons ce…

While going on walks through the Axios National Park I noticed dumps of bathroom renovation debris lying around. Here and there on these dumps colourful bathroom tiles sparkled. I felt it would be a waste to just let them rot there seeing as they were still intact. I started to collect them on my walks…

Yes in drasi it is not only birds, we also receive reptiles and mammals. So I’m going to talk to you today about the only mammal flying actively: the bat! A little-known animal that I particularly like. These surprising mammals mostly use echolocation to orient themselves in the dark that acts like whale sonar. They…

How can we talk about drasi without talking about our beautiful dogs? Indeed, throughout volunteering we share our lives with 3 dogs living there that we feed and cuddle every day. Let me introduce them to you, at first we have “ Aδύνατος “ or as I like to call it: “Colonel”. A brave dog…

Today I’m going to talk about the ringing session. Thanks to Penelope I was able to attend my first ringing session. A rather eventful start, we start to inspect the places to know where to lay the nets in the kalochori swamp, well fallen we find ourselves stuck in the mud. Then starts a great…

[EN] As a volunteer, you will sometimes have to face death. It can be quite tough at the beginning, so here are a few tips to overcome it.  Let’s start with data. In 2022, 34% of the animals we welcomed were released. It is great, knowing that they arrive here with a low percentage of…

The Eurasian eagle-owl, or Bubo bubo, or even the Uhu, is one of the largest species of owl ! Did you know that the females are bigger, and their wingspan can measure up to 188 cm ? You can recognize them thanks to their orange eyes and 8 cm ear tuft. They are found in…

Having studied political sciences, I am convinced that every act we do, is political, whether we are aware of it or not. So it is really ironic that I wanted to do a voluntary service to get as much distance as possible from anything political or close to it. During this year, I kind of…

One of the advantages of being a volunteer in the rehabilitation center of Drasi, is that it’s located in the delta the Axios-Loudias-Aliakmonas National Park created in 2009. Sure Drasi is at the entrance of this park and still in the industriel zone, at the end of it at least, but take a bike (because…

I don’t know where to start, maybe from my love for nature, discovery, sharing, just my love for life. This childhood dream of becoming adventurous now takes on its full meaning.. For a long time I looked inside. Some experiences such as a civic service in the environment, the resumption of my studies in the…

I am a newcomer who arrived at the beginning of the month and I came by car from France. I travelled across seven different countries over 2500Km and it took me around 38 hours. It was the longest trip with my car and I don’t regret it ! France, the most expensive higways Since I…

If I write a blog about being a Drasi volunteer, I have to talk about my job and the work I do here. This work or this passion is in English Animal Caretaker/Healer/groomer and Zookeeper if you translate exactly and in Greek… who knows. Caring, it’s all in that word, the whole definition of what…

Today I want to talk about one of the things who matter the most in my life, who definitely changed it, and I hope in a good way, change the life of the being who surrendered me. It’s volunteering, that incredible «tool» who allows you to make a difference, to bring the change you want…

Kαλημέρα or Γεια σας everyone !I think nowadays, more than yesterday and hopefully less than tomorrow, we are aware and sensible about pollution.But today, because pollution is a big family, with unwanted members, let’s talk about plastic. Drasi is in the Axios – Loudias – Aliakmonas national park and manages to avoid the industrialisation of…

I’m Lyse, 27 and it’s been a little bit more than 1 month since I started working at Drazi. Thanks to the EVS program I will stay until mi-may! I am an animal groomer/healer by profession, who came to offer my help as so and I hope my experience will be beneficial for the association.…

The wild animals have a special significance in my life because since I was a baby, I could say that I lived around them in my family chalet located in the mountains. However, I have never gotten too close to them not just because I was afraid but also because I believe that human contact…

When I was a child, my mother was often reading me a story about a baby bird who was wounded by a hunter because it did not listen to the advice of its mother. This story made me cry every time as in the end of the story the mother has to take the painful…

Hey it’s Quentin, Today i’m going to speak to the release of two Honey busard the 21 april. The day before we did the pinnig With Froso. The pinnig is change the broken feather of a bird. So Froso cut the feather and make in place new feather from a dead bird with a little…

Kaliméra everybody !  The time passes so quickly, already 3 months that with Quentin we are in DRASI. We are happy ! I didn’t write the last month, April, because the work is more intense since this month, there are more arrivals : babies, a lot of storks on fact of electrocution, a lot of…

CHRISTO ANESTI ! and GOOD EASTER !  I come back to tell you about Easter tradition in Greece, for orthodox people. It’s not like in France, catholic person, Easter is not the beginning of April but the beginning of May. Greek people have a lot of traditions for easter, like for christmas, each day before…

YASSA, YASSOU, YA !  We are one more in the drasi family since the last wednesday : Jessica. She is a new volunteer who stays in DRASI during one month. She comes from Paris and between two jobs in marketing, she comes to help us in DRASI. She is so nice !  After a big…

Hello everyone!! Let me introduce myself, I ‘m Ophélie 21 years old, I come from France and I am in Drasi for 6 to 9 months. I later wish to orient my professional project in the support of wildlife. I am a groomer and my lover’s dad owns a private animal shelter. (Zebra, Dromedaries, Yak,…

I love spring. After winter the sunshine, colour and new life that comes back to the world is worth waiting for and garanteed to lift spirits. Like most English people when I thought of Greece I thought only of the summer; beaches, cocktails in the sun and lushous green mountains. When I realized that it…

Since two weeks, we welcomed Angélique, a beautiful woman coming Swiss and she came with a lot of motivation to help wild animals. We are enchanted to meet Angélique who are a beautiful life philosophy.  I advise you to read her chronicles in Liberté newspaper in Swiss.  I would like that she stays with us…

Για όσους δεν με ξέρουν, με λένε An-Sofie. Είμαι 20 χρονών και γεννήθηκα και μεγάλωσα στην Οστάνδη, μια βελγική πόλη δίπλα στη θάλασσα. Πάντα με ενδιέφεραν πολύ τα ζώα στα νιάτα μου και σπούδαζα φροντίδα ζώων στο γυμνάσιο. Δεδομένου ότι δεν υπάρχουν πολλά μαθήματα κολεγίου που αφορούν εξωτικά ζώα και άγρια ​​ζωή, έχω διαπιστώσει ότι…