The Human Rainforest Gathering  2016

It started slow after the last days party and festival. Some had only a few hours of sleep, but many celebrated the amazing dancing night everyone had had, and the fantastic festival that was held.

When everyone had breakfast it was time for the much anticipated group photo. A yearly crowd pleaser, since here we all are involved at the same time. Often many are cooking or doing other responsibilities. But here we were together,...

From the moment the y-toppians woke up today, there was an exciting buzzing going around the place. Today was a day of new events and experiments; a day of doing things that had never been done before in the Y-top history. The first Y-top Festival ever had been an event that a lot of people had been looking forward to and had been working very hard on. The event had even reached some local newspapers, magazines and (so we hear...

Most y-toppians didn’t know what they had gotten themselves into when they stepped out of the coaches onto one of the beaches in Killarney’s region this morning. In contrast with the sunny, warm weather that had been forecast for this day, the sky was grey and it wasn’t exactly surfing temperature, so to speak. Nevertheless, thanks to some crazy, goodhearted spirits among us, we still headed out onto the sand to see the first...

Today was one of the most spectacular days at this years camp and possibly ever. We started the day bright and early in the morning. Breakfast was delicious as always, and afterwards we went to our daily morning treehouse gathering. From there, we split into our color groups for in whitch we would work on diffrent projects. 

Each color represented different aspects of certain projects. Though we worked in separate groups, we al...

Today was fun and had a relaxed kind of rhythm over it.

We had four different volunteering projects: picking rhododendrons in the national nature reserve of Killarney, making art and planting flowers at the youth centre of Killarney, work at the music school of Killarney and finishing up the solar trail that was built on day 4

The solar trail posts were made stronger by putting cement in the holes. And every planet was decorated...

Ireland. A land of mystery, a land of magic, beautiful, rugged, full of power. Our tasking for the day: how can we discover the hidden secrets of this leprochaun-abounding land? Our search for the Mystery of Ireland begins.

This day we divided up into two groups, one going on a beautiful hike though the gap of Dunloe, and the other one spending a long morning in the wonderful city center of Killarney.

The story of the first grou...

Was amazing even though the weather was everything but ideal for the activities we were doing it could not get down our good spirits.

We did high ropes, paintball and bushcraft. It was so much fun. And somehow the persistent rain only made it better. It made it more memorable in a way.

The high ropes was quite a challenge with the rain and a lot of people with fear of heights faced and conquered their fears on the course. The in...

In the Ytop a lot of attention is focused on our direct environment. Where we live, where we grow and where we feel. Today we extended our vision and focused ourselves on everything outside of our known planet; today was the day of the Solar Trail.

For the first time in Ireland a solar trail would be built, here on the property of our temporary home. With the help of all the Y-Toppians we put out an entire route where the diffe...

Having a lot of sleep is not a given in the lively, full programs of the Y-top Gatherings. Today, no later than 06.30 am the y-toppians had to rise and shine and be ready for breakfast, to leave for the Killarney National Park at 7.30 am. At least, that was the time that was aimed for; reality had a different plan. So, around 08.15 am we headed out to start a walk through the beautiful Irish landscape.

It took us around nine ho...

Suddenly you're in the second day of the camp. It feels like the first, 'cause the previous evening was for landing, hugging, getting back together, resembling and smoothing the tiredness. Breakfast is like a fast break between the beds and the Tree House, where we all gather for the first steps into the Human Rainforest. This Tree House, a marquee that we rent just for the Y-TOP, is bare, besides from us, the seeds for the fu...

We are ready.

Ready to hit this gathering off with a bang. Ready to start feeling, learning, growing, laughing and exploring together.

We worked all year to get to this moment; the start of the 2016 Y-top gathering “The Human Rainforest” and it feels amazing now that we are finally here.

But let's start at the beginning of the day before the mansion got filled with Y-toppians. After a day like this the beginning of it already fee...

A lot of work has been done. These past few days and this past year to make this human rainforest summer gathering possible and we can all be incredibly proud already. Tomorrow everything is finally going to start. We can feel some nerves here but mostly joy and excitement to get started. Tomorrow morning Elias and Open are going to leave for Dublin at 4 am to pick up the participants from the airport and send them safely on t...

The gathering is knocking on our door and we have been working very hard to get the last details of logistics and facilitation ready. Today we split into two groups. Four of us, Trydent, Merin, Crystal and Maie went out and visited all the locations we will be volunteering. We will be visiting every location we will be spending time at outside of the youth hostel; to be well prepared. The rest of us stayed at the mansion to ch...

Today, the pieces have started to fall into place. Getting an overview of what needs to be done, an overview of who goes where, what goes when. Creating groups, creating rooms. I guess you could say it’s all starting to get pretty real!

A lot of exciting developments have happened yesterday and today. For example, we have made contact with different locals. The people we are going to be volunteering with, and we connected with...

Today was the first day of preparation, and we where exploring the magic of Ireland, by walking on the dragons tail, a path going on the edge of the estate. We are immersed in to the process of preparing the place for all of the participants. The place, nature  and people feels wonderful and welcoming, and we are excited about spending two weeks here. 

Hugs from the preparation team..