European Voluntary Service
„International Youth Houses„
Pori, Finland
12 months
Summary of the project:
Project lasts 12 months from September 2017 to September 2018, hosting organisation receives two volunteers. One from Italy, one from Bulgaria.
Our project aims to find and maintain a positive international atmosphere in all the activities provided by the coordinating and hosting organisation. We want our youngsters and workers to have an open mind and positive attitude towards other cultures and new international people coming to Pori. We wish our international volunteers to lead the way and help us achive our aims. In result both Finnish and immigrant youngsters and our workers feel more comfortable and can learn a lot from eacht other during our everyday activities. We hope that our youngsters would also get encouraged to travel and experience other countries and cultures.
We want to offer the young adults from other parts of Europe a possibilty to get valuable work experience here in Finland. Volunteers can get to know the profession of Finnish youth work and our versatile working methods. From experience we know that the volunteers also give us new perspectives and ideas to our work. We give our volunteers the possibility to plan and execute activities of their own, according to their strengths and interests.
Volunteer`s tasks:
Volunteer will work with host organizations youth workers as an assistant youth leader. Volunteer will take part in planning and executing all the activities our organization provides for youngsters in Pori. We arrange camps, trips, small group activities, events, projects, clubs, web youth work, special youth work, international youth work and open youth house activities.
The volunteer is expected to act as a responsible and respectable adult both on and off duty. Volunteer will plan their working hours together with their colleagues and stick to them.
The volunteer will work in our youth houses and smaller youth groups together with our youth workers. Youth houses are open for all 12-18 year-olds in Pori. Smaller youth groups are directed to certain youth and ages vary between 13-29 years.
The role of the volunteer is to be a reliable adult who supervises, listens and supports youngsters, arranges different activities with and to the youngsters. Volunteer will take part planning and executing events, camps and group activities. The youth houses are mainly open between 14:00-22:00. The small groups gather on different weekdays, each small group lasts for about 1,5 hours between 12:00 – 20:00. The small groups are about sports, cooking, crafting, internationality, online games, unemployment and youth council work.
Volunteers with graphic design skills can also design and create posters, flyers and social media adds. We encourage volunteers to participate in updating and creating campaigns for the social media channels of our organisation like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Youtube.
We hope the volunteer is teaching our youngsters their culture and language. We encourage the volunteer to use their skills they might have in music, arts, sports or other when working with our youngsters.
Volunteer will work mainly 5 days a week, 30 hours per week (with compliance) with 2 days off per week and 2 vacation days per month. Work is mostly evenings, either Monday to Friday or Tuesday to Saturday, but the schedule varies a lot and will be adjusted with the volunteers based also on their personal skills.
Support and trainings:
The On-Arrival Training for volunteers is in Youth Centre Villa Elba in Kokkola in 25.-30.9.2017. Mentor in HO will help getting the enrollment and travel tickets done.
The contact person of hosting organization will be the mentor for volunteers to help with learning goals and how to reach them as well as „monitoring“ how things are going overall and help with any problems that might occur. During first months they will have weekly meetings with volunteers to set up everything comfortably. After the mentor meetings will be once in two or three weeks and when ever needed. Hosting organization will also try to find mentors outside the organization for the volunteers, in case something comes up and the organization mentor is not reachable or if difficulties appear with the hosting organization.
About the hosting organization:
Our organization, the Department of Sports and Youth Affairs of Pori city, organizes the youth work and sports services provided by the city.
Our leading idea in Youth affairs: Through youth work and by affecting living conditions of young people we support their coping skills and social empowerment and create requirements for good life. We execute this idea by offering all the young people in our city the equal chance to take part in our activities. We offer camps and trekking, discos and band activities, diverse events, special youth work (small group activities, individual guidance, street patrolling), web youth work, projects, youth club activities, youth council and international youth work. Almost all of our activities for youngsters are for free or with really small entrance fees.
We are applying for our fourth EVS project as hosting organization. The previous projects and trainings related to ERASMUS+ program have toughed us greatly of practical arrangements as well as of the principles and ideology of the EVS program. Our organization is an experienced government regulated organization producing the youth work services for our City. Our staff has 16 professional youth workers providing quality youth work and we want to have EVS as part of our everyday activities.
Abouth the venue:
FINLAND
We think the best way to get to know some facts of Finland is to use google 🙂 But here are some fun links to check out. Some of it is very true, some of it not so much, feel free to ask if something bothers you:
http://www.visitfinland.com/media/finland-facts/
http://www.eupedia.com/finland/trivia.shtml
http://www.visitfinland.com/article/greatest-things-about-finland/
https://www.tripsavvy.com/things-not-to-do-in-finland-1626256
http://inktank.fi/14-fantastic-finnish-facts-you-probably-dont-know/
CITY OF PORI
Pori is a city and municipality on the west coast of Finland. The city is located some 10 kilometres from the Gulf of Bothnia, on the estuary of the Kokemäenjoki river. Pori was established in 1558.
The municipality has a population of about 85 000. The municipality is unilingually Finnish. It is the 11th largest city in Finland, and the 7th largest urban area. Pori is also the capital of the Satakunta region.
Profile of the volunteer:
As you might know the age limit for an EVS project needs to be between 18-30.
Most cases it is better when there are more years between the volunteers and our target group, since the volunteers are meant to be more of an authority than peers for the youngsters.
We want to be sure that the people who we select really want to come exactly to our project and know what they are applying for. It is important to us to try select the people we think are most suitable for; working with youngsters, to be living with another volunteer, to be able to work both in small and larger group of youth workers and to survive and enjoy the environment and nature we have in south west part of Finland.
Volunteers selected must be comfortable and motivated working with youngsters. Working with youngsters requires ability to take responsibility and initiative making contact with the youth. We hope to find volunteers who show interest towards some of the activity types we provide and have some experience or skills of at least one of them; outdoor or indoor sports, graphic design, social work, event planning and social media marketing.
Most cases it is better when there are more years between the volunteers and our target group, since the volunteers are meant to be more of an authority than peers for the youngsters. Our previous projects have had more male volunteers so this time we want to give the advantage to female candidates in the choosing process.
Project language:
Main working language is English, but volunteer will attend a Finnish language course. Finnish language is a bit difficult but not impossible to learn.
Monthly allowance:
Volunteer will receive 125€ pocket money plus 180€ per month for food. With the 305€/month the volunteer will get by. The money is just enough for food and necessities, it won’t cover extensive travelling, shopping or partying.
Travel cost and accommodation:
Hosting organisation will buy the flight tickets and arrange the transportation from the Helsinki airport to Pori.
The apartment of volunteers is close to the city center. It´s about 2,8km walk or ride with a bike. Host organisation will provide bicycles for volunteers. Volunteers will get an access card for the local public bus transportation when needed to get to work place. Some of the youth houses are quite far and sometimes the weather conditions are difficult.
The host organisation has rented an apartment for the two volunteers that do their EVS period at the same time. Volunteers have separate bedrooms but will share the kitchen, livingroom and bathroom together. Volunteers will take care of the apartments cleaning and keeping it in a good shape.
Apartment is in a storey building which means there are lot of neighbours. In Finland it is a regular rule in every storey building that after 22:00 there should not be any extensive noise in the apartments, like music or loud voices.
Volunteers get a finnish mobilephonenumber with internet connection paid by the hosting organisation. The flat also has a wifi connection.
Insurance:
Every participant should have valid European Health Card.
Each participant will get full health insurance provided by CIGNA health insurance company.
YouthPass:
Every participant is individually entitled to receive a Youthpass Certificate, which confirms participation and validates the non-formal learning (NFL) experience of Training course project. Validating the learning experiences of participants is important in itself and the document can be of benefit in terms of the educational or employment future of the participant. Through Youthpass the European Commission ensures the Training course activity is recognized as a non-formal learning experience.
(*For more information on Youthpass you may click on this page to check it online)
Relevant documents and links about the EVS:
EVS Info KIT: http://éc.éuropa.éu/youth/tools/évs-info-kit_én.htm
Erasmus+ Commission Website: http://éacéa.éc.éuropa.éu/érasmus-plus_én
Erasmus+ Home Page: http://éc.éuropa.éu/programmés/érasmus-plus/
Erasmus+ Programmed Guide: http://éc.éuropa.éu/programmés/érasmus-plus/discovér/guidé/indéx_én.htm
Erasmus+ Youth: http://éc.éuropa.éu/youth/indéx_én.htm
Youth pass Page: https://www.youthpass.éu/én/youthpass/for/évs/subpagé/
Voluntary Agreement: will be uploaded soon.
In order to apply for this project, fill in THIS APPLICATION FORM and send it to: stanimir.chukov@gmail.com
IMPORTANT!!!
In the title of the e-mail, write down the name of the project.
The deadline for applying is 31. 07. 2017
English