PROJECT SETTING
The European volunteers will live and work at the male community Camillo House or at the female one Miriam house. They will have a room with bathroom. It is important they'll keep their room clean and ordered. They'll eat in the community helping hosts and operators in cooking.
Camillo House is in Carpignago di Giussago, a little village 2 km far from Certosa of Pavia, at the border with Milan province. It is a big house with 1000 mq of space and 2500 mq of garden. Camillo House is in the countryside to live open-air, produce part of our food, have spaces to play, be free and to guarantee protection to our hosts when necessary. Anyway, the house is well-connected with the urban contexts of Pavia and Milan.
Miriam House is a three floors villa, with a garden. We have decided to open this community in town, where there are more possibilities of work, study and cultural services. The building is shared with a community for needy women of the Cooperative "Casa del giovane", which is in the north part of the house. Miriam House is situated in a central part of Pavia, 10 minutes far from the railway station.
LOCAL COMMUNITY
Pavia is a city of around 25.000 inhabitants situated 40 Km far from Milan. Chief town of a fertile province, Pavia is particularly involved in the agriculture (wine, rice, cereals), the factories are few; its main activities are linked with the ancient university and the Polyclinic S.Matteo. Pavia is a city with ancient roots that offers cultural and tourist chances. Rich of elegant historical buildings, churches, cathedrals, distinguished palaces. We furthermore remind the Pavia's castle, with a big park around and its Chartreuse, a magnificent ensemble of buildings and gardens 8 Km far from the city. It might be curious to remind the Pavia-Venice, the longest moto-navigation world raid that race every year starting from our city; and the boating championship in the Ticino river, whose team is entirely composed from university students. Pavia is well connected with the public transportation with Milan and Genoa and offers good possibilities of work, study and free time.
RULES AND CONDITIONS
Our communities have their internal regulations, which are very important for us because they have among their aims a process of change. Rules and small privations are a daily reference, they are a proof of the personal and communitarian path towards a gradual conquest, considered possible; they are a tool for educating the hosted teeangers at an autonomous management of their future. Therefore, during the period of the community it's essential that the regulations advices will be known and respected from the volunteers understanding the spirit and the meaning. At Arimo:
whatever kind of violence, both physical and verbal is strictly forbidden;
we do not admit a caddish or not respectful language;
we do care about the external appearance of the people (cleaning, clothes, hairs) with the intent to promote the personal care and their own imagine;
the use of alcohol or drugs is strictly forbidden;
the introduction of the above mentioned substances is forbidden as well.
Considering the target of assisted people, even during moments in which the volunteers are not in service, we however require a lifestyle consistent with the principles and values that inspire the community. A great sensibility and a capability to gather the sufferings of the guests and the culture of this experience is required. It must be clear that the volunteers don't come for helping the single persons (being necessary for that a specific preparation and a deep knowledge of the personal and social reality of everyone), but to support an educational team engaged in a path of sharing and growth. The volunteers do not have to care of the educational project (this both for the protection of themselves and for the protection of the hosts), but must be able to share the daily experience, without creating conflicts or false expectations. It is very important to build a sincere and loyal relationship with the operators, based on a mutual trust, considering that the "alliance " among whom, in a different way, try "to take care" of the uneasiness, constitutes one of the most powerful therapeutic and rehabilitative factors. A breaking at any level between volunteers and operators would constitute an unsustainable difficulty and a damage for the community and the hosts themselves.

The project offers to the European volunteers an experience of a deep human relation, giving them the possibility to form themselves to the comprehension and the concrete solidarity towards teenagers that are often deprived of affections and reference points. The European volunteers thanks to this intense experience of cohabitation and sharing will be able to improve their relational and transversal abilities; comparing themselves daily with people coming from different contexts. We will do our best in order to help the volunteers to develop abilities to work in team and resultants abilities of communication, listen, negotiation and mediation. The European volunteers will enter, step by step, in the context of an educative community observing how it works, its inner dynamics and receiving a not-formal learning (coming from direct approach close to our hosts) about education, "accompaniment" toward autonomy, psycho-therapeutic help to teenagers in situations of strong uneasiness. We will sustain the integration of the volunteers in the every day life of the house and of the our local community. We will help them in the learning of the Italian language and our local traditions. We will give to the volunteers the possibility to organize initiatives to testify and transmit their culture of origin improving in that way an intercultural exchange inside our community.

It is important to underline that the European volunteers will not substitute the staff in the ordinary activities but they will bring an adding value to the community helping the operators to enhance the work already in progress. The volunteers will not have an educational role with the hosts, but they will pose themselves in an intermediate level with the aim to make the communication and the closeness of the operators towards the hosts easier, through their good example, their presence and closeness, the daily sharing of life: it is therefore essential that the volunteers avoid any autonomous educational intervention, aiming to build a true and deep alliance with the operators. In helping the hosts they could deepen the dialogue with them and gather their confidences as well, but it will be important never give them the impression that the mutual loyalty might consist in "covering" them towards the educators. The volunteers will have to acquire the sensibility for getting close to the hosts without confine themselves at the role of "friends" and without creating too many expectations or affective investment.

The different activities that the community carries out will be showed to the volunteers, in order to give them a global vision of our reality becoming able to understand more easily the specificity of each situation. According to inclinations and personal abilities the volunteers will be involved in some of the proposed activities: formative activities in classrooms and laboratories (garden, vegetables and flowers, carpentry), artistic and sport activities, school support, watching films together and then discuss about them, support with the daily management of the house (preparation of meals with the hosts, maintenance of the house), organization and support of the free time activities, accompanying the teenagers to their check up or interviews with the social services. It is important to underline that the European Volunteers will never substitute the staff in the ordinary activities but will bring an adding value to our community helping the operators in the different activities, enriching and enhancing the work already in progress.
The working timetable, generally speaking, will be articulated into two shifts: one in the morning from 7:30 to 2:30 and one in the afternoon from 3:00 to 10:00. As the European volunteers will live and work inside the house, they'll have to keep in mind that the timetable might be flexible according to the needs of the day. We ask great flexibility and comprehension in this. However, their engagement won't exceed 7 hours per day and 5 days per week. The volunteers will mature two day off each month of service. Every week they'll have two days of rest, that won't be always Saturday and Sunday, because those days are very good occasions to socialize with the hosts and organize all together recreational activities or excursions. We will try however to mediate between the requests of the volunteers and the need of the community.

Arimo can host volunteers for periods of 6/12 months. They will live together with the teenagers of the community sharing spaces and daily life. The volunteers mustn't have a specific profile or particular characteristics. We're available to welcome every volunteers with a serious motivation towards our project and our hosts, with a lot of energy and curiosity. We reckon that it is essential the availability to live in a complex contest and sometimes even conflictual like a community for adolescents in difficulty. It is necessary that they know how to adapt at the rules of the house with maturity and comprehension. For a bigger independence in their free time we believe that the driving license might be useful.
We're however open to co-operate with whatever sending association without any kind of discrimination. We will do our best to guarantee a correct and transparent selection process towards each candidate that will contact us or our co-ordination organization.

Our structures are unfortunately not equipped for hosting people with physical disabilities. We're, instead, available to welcome volunteers with fewer opportunities from geographic, social, economic or cultural point of view. However for protecting the harmoniousness and the security of both our hosts and the volunteers themselves it is necessary that the volunteers do not show psychic fragilities, educational deficiencies or serious situations of uneasiness that might increase in contact with our reality, which is already very delicate and of strong emotional impact.
Considering the particular context of insertion and the target of people that we host in the house (8 adolescents with strong risk of uneasiness, isolation and deviancy) we will evaluate every single application.
In any case, thanks to the experiences maturated and the professionalism of our staff, the operators will offer a proper support both from the human and working side to the inserted volunteers. The volunteers will be eventually followed from the psychotherapist consultant of the community both at individual and group level.

Life and work conditions:
Both communities of our Cooperative are a safe environment equipped with every comfort. Life in community does not present any particular physical risk, but is definitely an experience of strong emotional impact. For their own serenity in work and in the communitarian life it is very important that the volunteers might enjoy of times of decompression and spaces for themselves: for this reason it is advisable that the volunteers respect the general organization mark of the days with shifts and defined activities that we undertake to guarantee. Furthermore, for the calmness of the volunteers and all the educational staff, it is essential to build a good dialogue with the operators: the volunteers will have daily chances to express their pasts and their experiences with the hosts, during the moments of verification with the educator of reference or with the staff. In the confrontation and in the communication difficulties, doubts, conflicts, fears might be faced and serenely elaborated together. The volunteers will receive the necessary support from the linguistic, human and working point of view.
Risks and crisis management :
The volunteers will receive a concrete preparations about the personal situation of each host of the community for learning to know from the beginning the characteristic and the main problems of each of them: such information will help the volunteers to orientate themselves in the relation. The volunteers will never left alone with the group of the hosts: there will always be the shift educator; when the volunteers will be more inserted in the context, at maximum, they can test the relation "one to one" in occasion of the exits for accompanying some hosts. The volunteers might count on the support of a psychologist, supervisor of the educational staff of the community, that will be at their disposal both for group intervention and personal interviews. The psychologist has furthermore the task to protect the formation of the volunteers during their experience in the community and take care of the coherence between the expectations of the volunteers and what they can concretely find in the daily experience.
In every difficult situation the staff will evaluate the better solutions, co-ordinating itself with IBO Italia reference operators and the sending organization, with whom specific moments of communication and verification will be provided.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=42000509762