SEEDS 2012

Information about SEEDS

SEEDS (SEE beyonD borderS) Iceland was founded in 2005 as a non-governmental, non-profit organisation with international scope. Our main activities relate to the promotion of environmental protection and awareness, intercultural understanding and peace, through the work on social, cultural and environmental projects in Iceland.
We aim to empower, inform and expand the horizons of people of all ages, cultures, and backgrounds, to inform them about the world in which we live and to take an active role in its future development.
SEEDS provides opportunities to live, learn, understand and experience, while sharing and cooperating with others from different cultures and backgrounds.
SEEDS Projects & Activities
SEEDS works closely with local communities, local authorities and other Icelandic associations. Jointly we develop projects aimed at fulfilling an identified need or to help in the development of particular actions that are already being undertaken. Projects are designed to be mutually beneficial to all involved: the individual volunteers, the local hosting communities and Iceland as a whole!
By having a diverse array of projects and bringing together people from different backgrounds, creating more opportunities; we try to fulfil our vision and build on our founding ideas.
Activities developed by SEEDS include:
- International workcamps
- European Voluntary Service
- Internships and lifelong learning programmes.
- Awareness raising initiatives and campaigns
- Seminars, training sessions
- Exchanges

Our projects in Iceland are funded and supported by:
- Contributions from participants and volunteers in the projects
- Youth in Action and Leonardo da Vinci Programmes of the European Commission.
- Engagement of our long-term volunteers and interns.
- Additional non-financial contributions in kind from the local hosts of the projects.
We are members of the Icelandic National Youth Council (LÆF), the Icelandic Environment Association (LANDVERND), the Senior European Volunteers Exchange Network (SEVEN) and work actively as partner organisation of the Alliance of European Voluntary Service Organisations (The Alliance), Service Civil International (SCI) and Youth Action for Peace (YAP).
During 2009 we organised 45 different projects located in every corner of Iceland; we hosted more than 400 International volunteers from 40 different countries, who performed almost 30.000 hours of valuable volunteer work! In this time we increased our work with various environmental protection and conservation projects and we also raised the number of projects related to arts, cultural activities, festivals and sports events.
Volunteers performed different types of tasks, for instance ecological research, removing invasive growth, building hiking trails, cleaning up the coastline, reforestation and erosion control work as well as construction or renovation of heritage monuments or community centres. In the cultural/festival/sport events related jobs, SEEDS came into action helping in their organisation and also taking part actively in the events.
We bring together volunteers and hosts from different nationalities and backgrounds, aiming at building up international understanding and encouraging peace, while working for an identified need within a community.
Many of our participants want to visit Iceland and get to know the country from a different perspective, being able to interact with locals and at the same time dedicating some of their time to support particular projects and addressing specific needs of the hosts.
The rewards for the volunteers, communities and ecosystems are massive, while interacting with Icelanders, volunteers learn about the local culture and have the opportunity to build friendships; additionally, they develop new skills working in challenging and unfamiliar surroundings.

For more information about SEEDS please visit: www.seedsiceland.org

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