Coordinating organisation: NGO Actio Catholica Patria
Host: PI Actio Catholica Patria: https://www.facebook.com/jcvartai/photos_stream
Location: Kaunas, Lithuania
Application Deadline: 19/01/2016
Start: 01/09/2016
End: 01/09/2017
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.
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.
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!!!