Stowarzyszenie Wzajemnej Pomocy Bona Fides i ormiańska organizacja „Centre for community mobilization and support” poszukuje wolontariuszy na EVS.

CV i list motywacyjny w języku angielskim prosimy przesyłać do 7 lipca 2013 na adres [email protected]

OPIS PROJEKTU:

CZAS PROJEKTU: 1/09/2013-31/08/2014

PROJECT ENVIRONMENT:

Most of the EVS activities will be held in Alaverdi town. The EVS volunteers will run the European Club there for young people from the town and nearby villages. Normally the office is open during 10-19:00 every working day. There are 3 staff members working at the office all the time. The organisation also has 10 other employees who work in the below mentioned communities. Sometimes they also come to the office in Alaverdi for some activities and meetings, but in general they work in the communities. The EVS volunteers will work at the office in Alaverdi 3 days a week. The office has all the needed facilities and equipments for organizing the European and Cultural Clubs. The organisation also has 10 local volunteers who help the organisation in daily activities, and the EVS volunteers will also cooperate with them. Alaverdi is a small town located in the north of Armenia bordering to Georgia. It have about 16,500 inhabitants. The EVS volunteers will help the host organisation in its regional community development activities which will be implemented for the inhabitants of Lori region 10 communities out of which 9 are rural: Chochkan, Mets Ayrum (where refugees live), Haghpat, Akori, Kachachkut, Jiliza, Arevatsag, Mghart, Karinj ,and 1 urban community: Alaverdi. Anyways, the centre will be Alaverdi where volunteers will live. The inhabitants from other communities will be involved in the project and can feel the value of this project on their skins. The volunteers will work 2 days a week in the above mentioned communities. They will leave to the places mostly with the staff members of the host organisation with the car for community development activities or the shared-taxi service the host organisation is cooperating with. It takes about 15-40 minutes to get to the communities. CCMS will have local offices in all the mentioned communities they work with starting from the beginning of 2013. The offices will have internet and all the needed equipments for safe working environment. The volunteers work will mostly be in our office in Alaverdi. The address is apt.3, str Jravazan 2a, Alaverdi, Lori, Armenia. The direct community of the EVS volunteers will be the host organisation members and local young volunteers who are friendly, social with great enthusiasm. People in Alaverdi are very hospital and positive. Young people here, while interacting with Greek and Russian communities, refugees, and foreigners visiting the region, have developed a certain level of intercultural sensitivity and are very friendly and understanding to foreign young people. The volunteers will visit communities, communicate with members and try to assist the host organisation in solving the community problems activities. The volunteers work starts at 10.00 and ends at 18.00 (including 2 hours of lunch break). Working week consists of 5 days. The volunteers will live in a rented flat near to the office of the host organisation (if it is not near the office, transportation will be provided). Each of the volunteers will have his/her own room. The rented flat is properly decorated and has sufficient furniture with cleaning, cooking, and washing facilities.

PROPOSED ACTIVITIES FOR EVS VOLUNTEERS:

The volunteer will have the following learning opportunities and services:

• Getting acquainted with Armenian culture and language through constant visits to different areas in the region, interacting with local people, participating in different, programmatic, regional (traditional) and cultural events,
• Learning Civil Voice and Action (CV&A) methodology as community involvement and advocacy tool used by CCMS NGO,
• Developing project management competences while assisting in development of various activities and project in communities,
• Learning various methods for working with youth from disadvantaged backgrounds (rural and deprived urban areas, unemployment, refugees),
• Learning principles and advantages of eco-tourism, getting competent in planning strategies and designing future related activities.

The role of EVS volunteers will be assisting the host organisation in its activities. Most of the activities of CCMS have been implemented for many years, and the volunteers will give to these activities refreshment, Intercultural and European dimension, and creativity and new ideas. The host organisation will encourage the volunteers to give new ideas to the activities of CCMS and/or suggest any new activities that they would like to initiate in our communities. The below mentioned planned activities are flexible and will be final-tuned according to the interests and learning needs of the volunteers.

A. Thematic discussions of European Club (20%)

Our organisation (CCMS) has planned to open a European Club. The Activity duration will be broken into several different thematic months (lets say Month of European Cooperation, Month of Intercultural Communication, Month of Cultural Tolerance, Month of European Projects etc.). During these months sets of different thematic activities (campaigns, exhibitions, action days, movie screenings, and round tables) are organized for and by young people. The volunteers will work together with the coordinator of the project and other staff members to identify the most topics that are of a high interest and concern for young people. The concrete tasks of the volunteers here will be:

• identification of an interesting discussion topic for young people of Alaverdi
• together with the volunteers and the staff of CCMS preparing discussion materials/presentations for the club meetings
• preparing and disseminating announcements of these activities for young people
• together with CCMS volunteers animating club meetings for young people and preparing short reports of these activities
• to disseminate the printed and other promotional and information materials on European Youth programs and structures (in particular on Youth in Action Programme of EC)

Opening of European Club was suggested by the supporting organisation ICIRLD. Another European Club has been already functioning at another hosting placement in Goris town (Tteni Cooperation – 2011-PL-29) and the effect and impact on local community, in particular youth is huge. Therefore, ICIRLD suggested opening a similar club here in Alaverdi coordinated by CCMS NGO. The volunteers/members who will coordinate this club have been already trained by ICIRLD and have proper knowledge on relevant topics and competence in running such a club.

B. General involvement in the work of the organization (70%)

The Host organisation implements various activities aimed at community development in deprived urban and rural areas in Lori region. CCMS implements educational, capacity building and other activities for young people to make them active members of their communities. The tasks will be:

• visiting the deprived urban and rural communities and assisting CCMS in community development projects (assisting in awareness raising campaigns; together with community social workers evaluating needs assessments, visiting concrete structures (schools, health spots, etc) and identifying problems, designing yearly activities and structured seminars, etc)
• interacting with community inhabitants and identifying community problems and later on assessing needs through various methods (group interviewing, expert meeting, questionnaire, etc) – for this task the volunteers has to have basic Russian knowledge as local people in excluded communities mostly do not speak English,
• assisting in designing eco-tourism in our region which is in stage of development (the organisation has started developing strategies of organising eco-tourism in Lori Region and volunteers will help planning future activities, designing information centers and eco-attractions, etc.),
• finding partners, available funds and new methods of community development in other countries using internet through partner networks and other sources, in order to establish fruitful partnership and cooperation with like-minded organisations in various countries for exchanging experiences and developing methodologies,
• assisting in planning and developing of media and communication mechanism on projects (drafting announcements and press-releases, assisting in conducting press-conferences, etc)
• helping in updating the English part of the CCMS website (writing an article about his/her EVS experience, concrete activities, travel and cultural discoveries, uploading photos, possibly also keeping a separate blog on his/her EVS project, etc.)
• scheduled meetings with the mentor and project coordinator/support staff
• having Armenian language course twice per week

C. The volunteers will also have time and space for initiating activities of their liking (10%)

S/he will get support for his/her personal project from the hosting organisation (materials, logistic arrangement, methodological support, etc.), as well as ICIRLD (in case of need) will provide constant supervision and support in particular to learning process during the volunteers personal project.

The supporting organisation ICIRLD will constantly provide support and consultancy to the hosting organisation throughout the EVS service. There will be regular visits and evaluation meetings. Volunteer–Hosting Organisation–Supporting Organisation contact will be strongly kept.

Weekly schedule example

Monday (10:00 – 13:00 Preparation of European Club [identifying discussion/presentation topics and methods and preparing for that, designing the schedule, preparing and disseminating announcements]; 13:00 – 15:00 lunch Break; 15:00 – 17:00 Implementation of European Club [animating club meetings and activities] 17:00 – 18:00 meeting with language teacher

Tuesday (10:00 – 13:00 visiting the deprived urban and rural communities and assisting CCMS in community development projects [assisting in awareness raising campaigns; together with community social workers evaluating needs assessments, visiting concrete structures (schools, health spots, etc) and identifying problems, designing yearly activities and structured seminars, etc]; 13:00 – 15:00 lunch Break; 15:00 – 18:00 interacting with community inhabitants and identifying community problems and later on assessing needs through various methods [group interviewing, expert meeting, questionnaire, etc])

Wednesday (10:00 – 12:00 involvement in the media and communication mechanisms on projects [drafting announcements and press-releases, assisting in conducting press-conferences, etc]; 12:00 – 14:00 Helping in updating the English part of the CCMS website [writing an article about his/her EVS experience, concrete activities, travel and cultural discoveries, uploading photos, possibly also keeping a separate blog on his/her EVS project, etc.]; 14:00 – 16:00 lunch Break; 16:00 – 17:00 meeting with the coordinator [getting task related support]; 17:00 – 18:00 meeting with language teacher)

Thursday (10:00 – 13:00 visiting the deprived urban and rural communities and assisting CCMS in community development projects [assisting in awareness raising campaigns; together with community social workers evaluating needs assessments, visiting concrete structures (schools, health spots, etc) and identifying problems, designing yearly activities and structured seminars, etc]; 13:00 – 15:00 lunch Break; 15:00 – 18:00 interacting with community inhabitants and identifying community problems and later on assessing needs through various methods [group interviewing, expert meeting, questionnaire, etc])

Friday (10:00 – 12:00 assisting in designing eco-tourism [help in planning future activities, designing information centers and eco-attractions, etc.]; 12:00 – 14:00 finding partners, available funds and new methods of community development in other countries using internet through partner networks and other sources; 14:00 – 16:00 lunch Break; 16:00 – 18:00 Time for personal project initiation; 18:00 – 19:00 meeting with the mentor [getting personal support])

This weekly schedule is flexible and will be finally adjusted with the volunteers taking into account their suggested activities and their learning needs.

VOLUNTEER PROFILES AND RECRUITMENT PROCESS:

There is no requirements of special competences. What is really important is the motivation of the volunteer to live and work in a distant region of Armenia. As this project is specifically designed for activating the social life of young people who are living in deprived urban and rural areas, we are looking for motivated volunteers having good sense of community life and cooperation. They should also be eager to take initiatives and be ready to work with young people coming from different social and educational backgrounds. We are also looking for open-minded volunteers who are ready to experience the real taste of a new and a quite different culture in a town which is not a capital city, and are equally ready to share and present the culture they come from. Russian language is a plus but is not a must. People in our communities speak more Russian then English. So, it would be easier for the volunteer in integration in the local communities and carrying out his/her activities. The supporting organisation ICIRLD will disseminate the project call through its international partner networks and www.youthnetworks.eu network to make the project placement more accessible. Then the application packages of the candidates will be sent to the our organisation where the selection of volunteers will be carried out by our staff according to candidates motivation and interests.

RISK PREVENTION, PROTECTION AND SAFETY:

Most of the issues related to the cultural differences between the volunteer country and Armenia (and especially Alaverdi as the subculture there is different from the one in Yerevan) will be addressed by the host and supporting organisations. This will give a possibility to avoid cultural shock and different kinds of cultural misunderstandings that might appear during the integration and work with the local community. For integration of local community skilful mentors will be enclosed with the volunteers. The mentors are well trained by the supporting organisation ICIRLD and are able to support the volunteers during cultural shock and crises. As the CCMS is cooperating with local municipality and some international structures, it will use its partnership to promote EVS in the region, get additional human and material support for the volunteers activities in the communities and possibly get co-funding to provide a higher quality living standards for the EVS volunteers. All the necessary work conditions will be provided by organization (the organization has necessary resources). The organization is happy to help the volunteers with their human recourses and they will be able to use freely the organization equipment by consolidating all their opportunities. The Host organisation has all the needed safety conditions (first-aid kit, extinguisher, etc.). The task related support people are also trained by ICIRLD staff and are ready to provide proper support and create an upmost learning environment for the EVS volunteers. Another possible risk is the different life rhythm in Alaverdi (there are very few activities in the city in evening times), and to prevent the possible psychological challenges we have decided to cooperate with our contact point organisations as well as projects coordinating organisations will work together to develop ways to avoid these psychological obstacles. Anyways, the host organisation will be close to the volunteers and try to organize their free time actively and with fun. The volunteers will live in a rented flat. Each of them will have his/her own room. The flat will have all the needed facilities (cooking, heating, etc) for normal living conditions. The organization will provide all necessary communication equipment in order the volunteers can freely connect with their relatives and/or EVS sending organizations. AXA insurance will be made for the EVS volunteers. In case of any accident, the volunteers will be taken to proper doctors. The supporting organisation ICIRLD will organize an on-arrival introduction for the coming volunteers in Yerevan for 2-3 days before the volunteers arrival to their hosting placement in Alaverdi. They will be trained on concrete cultural behaviours in Alaverdi, their future EVS activities, Youthpass and learning advantages, etc. ICIRLD will constantly visit the hosting placement and provide all the necessary support to the hosting organisation and volunteers. The activities of the volunteers will be constantly reflected upon and evaluated during regular meetings organized by ICIRLD. As ICIRLD also supports other EVS hosting organisations in other towns, there will be also organized meetings with other volunteers and visits to other EVS hosting organisations where the volunteers, mentors, and support staff will exchange their experiences and address their main challenges. This whole process will help to assess the effectiveness of the volunteers activities, their learning process, organizing logistics and ensure quality support/supervision and mentorship for the EVS volunteers while constantly developing the competences of EVS support people. CCMS will not be able to host volunteers who are under 18 years old.