About the project

Youth centre “Vartai” suggests open evenings on Tuesdays – Fridays from 15pm till 19pm hours. Youth centre is located in the background and basement which fits to youth activities and is loved because of its unusual environment. Through the activities of the youth centre we try to provide young people a safe space, where they can spend their leisure time with less risk of violence, drug abuse or harassment, having a place to use their energy in a creative and conscious direction. Lack of safe place for the young people we see as an important social problem. There are plenty of clubs, where consuming alcohol and drugs is not controlled, as well as nearly no institution makes an effort to help young people reinforcing and accepting every young person. We try to support youngsters in change towards more constructive lifestyle and behaviour.

Target group Youngsters coming to the centre are ~14-21 years old. Everyday there appear up to 20-30 youngsters. Many of them experience various struggles related to adolescence, some come from social risk environment, thus having troubles with aggressive or destructive behaviour, mistrust of adults, lack of self-confidence and self-esteem.

Activities with young people are in the open evenings, 4 days per week. Such like table games, musicians, language clubs, movie screenings and etc. Youngster sometimes also has concerts or workshops, but sometimes young people just come over to have a tea and chat about various things who are important for them.

There are 2 professional workers everyday in the centre, local volunteers helping and 1-2 international volunteers, therefore usually we are in need of help.

– We see that it is very important to offer the volunteer an intensive, available and regular accompaniment. We understand this concept as a regular meeting for the reflection, where both, the tutor and the volunteer can evaluate the working process. Tutor has been working with the EVS volunteers for few years already, so she gained different experiences in the process of changing cultures and living environment.

– We can offer friendly and open minded team of young people. As a necessary condition for a productive work we see motivating and fair work atmosphere.

– Apart from the language the volunteer will gain team skills, skills in planning, organizing different events, evaluation, leading and related

Tasks

– The main role of the volunteer is to participate in everyday activities at open youth centre together with the youngsters (board games, table football, ping-pong games). Main aspect of the volunteer goal is communication and creating a trust based relationship with youngsters. The role has two characters: the assistance of the activities, which come from the other people or implementing his/her own ideas.

– Participation in the staff meetings, where the accomplished activities will be evaluated the further ones planned. In these meetings we share the tasks, reflect personal situations in the project, plan new events or workshops and discuss new opportunities. Also, after every open evening we create a safe space for sharing and reflection of the day, for feelings and ideas. Furthermore, volunteers as our team members would have a possibility to participate in cases analysis. It is very important for whole team to communicate and have the same ideas about harder cases as much as to know how to react on them or in different situations (About 10 % of the time).

– Activities with the young people during the opened evenings, four days per week. During the opened evenings we sometimes have concerts or workshops, but sometimes young people just come over to have a cup of tea, to chat or to play board games (About 50 % of the time).

– Distribution of the information about the activities of the youth centre. We try to spread information about concerts and workshops in Kaunas. It would be helpful if the volunteer would take part in this process, in form of making flyers, information booklets, handing them out in the street (About 5 % of the time).

– Preparing the space for the activities, whether it’s out or inside (About 5 % of the time).

– Implementing his/her own initiatives and ideas. Open youth centre is a perfect place for self initiatives and creativity. Every workshop, project, concert, idea or any kind of activity is very welcomed (About 15 % of the time).

– Street work. One day a week we will go to work in a street and try to reach those youngsters who are not reachable by any institution or organization. Volunteer will have a possibility to be a part of this new process (About 5 % of the time).

Selection Criteria

– The main character feature of the volunteer is the motivation for the learning process. We do not identify ourselves as teachers; the main idea about this is to be able to find the positive sense in every experience. When changing the culture you confront with many challenging things to learn: to understand different cultural codes, the values of special group of people you deal with, how the way of thinking and the lifestyle is influenced by the material norms of the country, the language and etc. It would be very nice if volunteer would have some knowledge about music or knows how to play with music instruments and would be willing to share his love for music with youngsters  In our centre we have music room with various instruments (guitars, drums, electric piano and etc.) where youngsters teach each other play with instruments, rehearse or sing. So it would be a possibility to organize lessons or some other activities connected with music.

– It is important that volunteer would be at least 24 years old, due to the peculiarity of the target group (some youngsters are ~24 years old).

– It would be helpful for the project and for the volunteer, if he or she would be interested in any kind of arts, all these skills can be used in the project and accelerate integration process.

– Interested not only in work with young people but more important in the young people themselves and in their world.

– It would be great, if the volunteer would read this description before coming. 🙂 To these features we will pay attention during the recruitment process. We are going to have a personal contact during recruitment process (questionnaire, Skype conference or interview via phone) and before coming to a project. Other notices: It is very important that the volunteer would be interested in open youth work and responsibly take his/her role, initiative is very welcome. Some youngsters might be the same age as the volunteer, thus it requires extra self-consciousness of the volunteer. Also it would be very very helpful if volunteer would play well any music instrument or would be skilled in music recording (we have all necessary equipment). For work at volunteer centre time management, self-organization and responsibility is very important, even though tasks are regularly supervised, but it takes a lot of independence to accomplish them.

Selection Procedure

Please, for this position apply directly to Asta and Vaida at jcvartai@yahoo.com. Send your CV and define very shortly in the email few reasons why this vacancy particularly fit you (what do you think you can offer and what do you see you can gain, learn, improve (more specifically than experience in general)). Thank you and looking forward to hearing from you!!!

About the project

Tasks

Selection Criteria

Selection Procedure

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Published by Silvia