Project environment

This EVS project is based in Kavadarci, a city located in central Macedonia. There are about 35.000 people living in Kavadarci, most of them ethnic Macedonians and Ortodox Christians. The city is situated in the Tikvesh Valley, and thus it has good environmental conditions for agriculture – which is the most developed economic activity in the whole region. Kavadarci has characteristics of both continental and mediterranean climate, with hot summers and mild winters. It is the most famous for wine-production, with the biggest winery in Macedonia “Tikves” being located there. Kavadarci is situated on a distance of 100 km from Skopje (the capital) and Bitola (second biggest city), while the border with Greece is just 80 km away. There are very good bus connections between Kavadarci and most of the cities in Macedonia.
Kavadarci is a city with rich cultural and sport life, compared to other cities in Macedonia. It has cultural institutions, theatre hall, sports hall, football stadium, swimming pool and other facilities. In September the city celebrates the beginning of grape-gathering, with big festival and carnival. There are a number of other events taking place during the year, including sports tournaments as well. Kavadarci has famous clubs in basketball, handball and football, and it often hosts national tournaments and play-offs in these sports. Regarding education, Kavadarci has 3 high schools and 5 primary schools, plus a bigger number of primary schools in the surrounding villages. There is also a primary music school in the city.
On a distance of just 15 km from Kavadarci is the Tikves Lake – the biggest manmade lake in Macedonia. The lake is a popular destination for fishing and swimming. A number of archaeological sites and monuments are found around the lake, as well as in other parts of the region.

The EVS volunteers hosted in this project will live in Kavadarci. They will be accommodated in an appartment or a house not far from the city center. Kavadarci does not have any public transportation and everything in the city is easily reachable by foot. The volunteers will live in an area with many shops and close to city’s open market, where cheap food products can be found. There are a number of cafe bars and clubs located in the city as well.

The Youth Association creACTive has its main office in Skopje, where it rents offices and a youth club. Neverthelles, creACTive is implementing projects and activities on a national level as well. Organization’s membership is consisted of young people from different cities in Macedonia, but most of the members outiside of Skopje come from Kavadarci. Few of creACTive’s team members are also originally from Kavadarci. Since the local members from Kavadarci showed great potential, motivation and interest in developing activities, creACTive decided to open an office and address the needs of young people in this city as well. Now the organization rents offices near the city center, fully equiped with computers, printer and other office equipment. Internet connection is also available. The office in Kavadarci has regular communication and cooperation with the main offices in Skopje. Thus, the EVS volunteers based in Kavadarci can be sure that they will be updated with the general activities of the organization and will have the opportunity to get involved in other national projects of creACTive.

Activities of the volunteer

This project is focused on providing non-formal education opportunities to children and young people from Kavadarci. The specific topics of the activities depend on the personal preferences, knwledge and experience of the volunteers. Still, the intention is to organize different types of activities in the fields of arts, culture, language courses, use of computers, sports, theatre, media, and others suggested by the volunteers. In addition to this, creACTive sees this project as a way to support the local club of creACTive’s Model of United Nations (CMUN) in Kavadarci, which is based in the High School “Dobri Daskalov”. Thus, it is expected that the volunteers would organize activities with its members as well.
As a hosting organization, creACTive will show a considerable amount of flexiblity and together with every single volunteer will define volunteer’s exact tasks and daily/weekly working timetable. The organization is also open for volunteer’s own ideas and initiatives.

Description of tasks
Project’s activities will be mostly developed in cooperation with the Primary School “Strasho Pindzur” from Kavadarci. The school has about 300-400 students aged 7 to 14. In addition, the school is also responsible for 3 primary schools in villages near Kavadarci. Largest of them is the primary school based in Drenovo – village located 12 kilometers from the city. The school in Drenovo has about 70 students, also including about 20 children from smaller villages around Drenovo, who study in Drenovo because there are no schools in their places of living. Because of this, during the week they live in a student dormitory in Drenovo, which is also part of the primary school.
The volunteers will be expected to develop part of their tasks in the city and part of them in the village of Drenovo, while still living in Kavadarci. The activities will be mostly implemented in working space provided by the school, as well as in creACTive’s office in Kavadarci. Activities in Drenovo will be developed in a room provided by the dormitory. All equipment and materials will be provided by creACTive. The balance between working in the city and in a village will be agreed together with the volunteers. In general, each volunteer will be expected to fulfill the following tasks:
Preparing the topic for the activities (workshops)
Preparing the contents for the activities (games, exercises, classes)
Implementing the activities together with another EVS or local volunteer

Workshops will be implemented with small groups of students, mostly ranging from 10 to 20 members. With each group activities will be developed twice or three times a week, lasting 45 to 90 minutes. The same, or very similar types of activities will be developed in the city and in the village. In Drenovo, the volunteers will also have the opportunity to organize structured free-time activities for the children living in the dormitory. The time necessary for traveling and for specific preparations in Drenovo will be included in volunteer’s working time.
It is expected that these activities would take up to 60 – 70% of volunteers’ working time. The rest of the working time will be filled with activities developed with the local members of the organization (in organization’s offices), with the local club of CMUN in Kavadarci and activities in the High School “Dobri Daskalov”. Typical tasks for the volunteers will be:
Organizing and assisting the organization of various activities for the young members from Kavadarci (workshops, outside events, performances, concerts, volunteer actions etc)
Assisting the work of creACTive’s office in Kavadarci (coordinating the members, planning activities, fund-raising etc)
Providing support and help to the local instructors of the CMUN club (description of the CMUN project is provided on creACTive’s web page)
Organizing promotional events for the organization and its activities
The volunteers will implement all activities in cooperation with organization’s team members and local volunteers from Kavadarci. There is also an opportunity for organizing common activities with the EVS volunteers based in Skopje, as well as for initiating new activities, according to volunteers’ ideas.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=66000083868