Project environment

Our youth center is situated in the city of Amstetten in Lower Austria (about 70 kilometers from St. Pölten, the capital of Lower Austria and 150 kilometers west from Vienna).
Amstetten has a population of 23.000 people. There are a lot of schools situated that are visited by young people from the region. There also a lot of different shops, retaurants and administrative authorities.
The city is situated in the flatter part of Austria even though it´s not far to get into the mountains. The surrounding of Amstetten is rural countryside. The river Danube is only about 10 kilometers away.
The public transport system is very good. The railway station is close to the youth centre.
The volunteer will live on its own in a flat located in the building of the local government. Its situated in the centre of Amstetten so everything important is achievable by foot.

Proposed Activities

In this evs project the volunteer will learn much about youth work in Austria and about social work with young people as well as about organizing different events, workshops and other activities. Furthermore she/he will make interesting experiences with young people from different backgrounds. The volunteer can take part in different advanced trainings concerning youth work.

Volunteers tasks:

We would like the volunteer to participate in our daily work with young people.
She/ he will work 4 to 5 days a week in our youth centre, will spend time with our visitors, will carry out different activities with them and will give them information.
Because she/ he will be in nearly daily contact with our visitors, the young people confide in her/him and talk to her/him about their problems and maybe the volunteer can help us in giving advice or work on these problems. Mostly the young people in our centre just need someone to talk to, someone who is listening to their problems.
So the volunteer will have some different tasks:
- Talk and support the youngsters
- Inform youngsters about different kind of topics
- Collect information, provide information on several topics (like school, leisure time,..)
- Being available for questions and problems
- Help the team of the youth center to arrange some different kinds of activities (like games, music, arts..)
- Support the staff in planing and organizing different events like bandcontests,..
- Support the team in their daily work (writing journal, answering e-mails, help keeping the centre clean)
Moreover she/ he should help in the office work (for example: design flyers or posters) and participate in our team meetings which take place once a week, where we discuss and reflect our work, collect new ideas,….

Working days/ Hours:

The youth centre is opened 6 days a week. Actually our volunteer will have to work 4 to 5 days a week, at the weekends as well. For the volunteer the working hours will be 30 per week. Usually the youth centre are open: Wednesday to Thursday and Sunday from 1.30 pm to 8.30 pm and Friday and Saturday from 1.30 pm to 9.30 pm. Once a week we have our team meetings in the morning (so we start earlier at 11 am).

An example of a working week:

Thuesday 1.30 to 8.30 (1 hour break between 4 and 5 pm): office work until 2 pm (answering E-Mails, discussing and planing activities for the day with colleagues, preparing change money).
2 to 8 pm: spending time with youngsters (playing games, discuss different topics, doing creative stuff, carry your own projects out…) help selling food and drinks, controll if our rules are observed.
8 to 8.30: talking about the day, particular situations and problems, writing down important infomations for colleagues.
Wedneyday 1.30 to 8.30 (1 hour break between 4 and 5 pm) - same tasks
Thursday: team meeting from 11 to 2 pm
Friday 1.30 to 9.30 (1 hour break between 4 and 5 pm)
Saturday 1.30 to 9.30 (1 hour break between 4 and 5 pm)
Holiday: The volunteer has 24 days (in 12 months) on his/her disposal. We will arrange the holiday periods according to the volunteer´s wish and the possibilties in the youth centre.

Volunteer Profile

Most of the youngsters come from very different backgrounds (social, religious, educational,…) so the volunteer should be open minded, socialize easily, interested in working with young people, interested in our daily work.
She/ he should have own ideas for projects, workshops or presentations and so on. Moreover the volunteer should be able to work in a team and acknowledge orders.