A.
1. Background and activities of the hosting organisation:
Bregtal School is an institution for mentally and physically handicapped children and young persons. It includes a school internal kindergarden, a school for mentally handicapped children, a boarding school and an early-advice centre as well as an integrated forest kindergarden. In the school internal kindergarden the mentally and physically as well as multiply handicapped children are looked after and specially encouraged in small groups. In the school for mentally handicapped persons about 70 pupils are educated. One part of the pupils (40) lives in the boarding school where the educational work is continued in family like group situations. An early-advice centre is integrated into the institution. From here, parents of handicapped babies and small children are given suggestions and support even before the children enter kindergarden. We think of ourselves as a kind of service centre in the field of special education and offer support to parents of children/young persons with a handicap or who are in danger of becoming handicapped. Furthermore, we are very active what regards public relations work, which results among other things in the fact that we regularly offer cultural events and that we are very well integrated into local and regional public life. In this way, we also succeeded in gaining experience with integrating measures on a most broad basis. Several integrated classes, for example, could be attached to regular schools and a forest kindergarden for normally developed children is in turn attached to our institution. In the center of Furtwangen our pupils conduct a café which is very well visited by the local population. By way of our most varied supply we also constitute a regular part in the activities of the local clubs. To give an example, events take place at our place on a regular basis, with which we support the regional community and are also warmly welcomed as supporting party. Moreover, we are also invited to all local events as helping hands and guests (citiy festivals, carnival processions, christmas fares, etc., to name only a few). Furthermore, we are active in what regards "cultural affairs" as promoter of for example exhibitions and concerts.
About 80 people of most different professions from all fields of education work in Bregtal School.


2. Location and region of the hosting institution:
Furtwangen is a small town (about 10 000 citizens) and an economic as well as cultural centre of a rural region of the Black Forest. Our town is considered an exemplary town for the whole of Germany. Furtwangen is situated within a charming landscape in the middle of the Black Forest, between Freiburg (1 hour by car) and Donaueschingen (30 minutes by car).
It is possible to become active in several clubs. Apart from that, there are museums and various cultural, social and sports events (marathon, carnival, music school, sports festivals, concerts, fairs, etc.). In Furtwangen, there is also a college with about 1000 students.
Because of the region's structure and also to make an exchange possible we attach great importance to the fact that 2 to 3 volunteers per year perform their voluntary service in our institution. Furthermore, this makes an easier entrance into the local conditions and structure of clubs possible. As regards leisure time activities Furtwangen offers among other things the most various opportunities for sports activities: skiing and cross-country skiing, mountain cycling, hiking, inlining and walking are only a few of the activities which can be performed directly from the institution.

3. Experience with the EVS:
Since 1997 Bregtal School has hostd European volunteers, who have come mostly from France, but also from Italy, Luxembourg, Poland, Hungary, Gouadeloupe, Belgium and Spain.
Up to now we have had a very positive experience with young people from Europe. The feedback which we have got up to now from the volunteers has also been very good.
The volunteers can invovle themselves and contribute their experience at any time and decide for themselves how intensive and in what way they get involved. The personality is to the fore and shall receive the freedom which each of the volunteers requires.

4. Rules which have to be kept: We work in the institution in most different teams and these as well as the rules which are correspondingly set up together have to be respected. However, it has to be possible at any time to check the rules against reality to ensure that they still correspond to the actual situation, which means an adaption to the actual needs is implicted.

B.
The volunteers project:
The volunteers will work together with mentally handicapped children and young people and will contribute to their special support with their school and leisure time activities.
The personal resources in the eductional work, while looked after by a tutor, the volunteers will be able to gain experience in the social field. To staff and pupils of Bregtal School the voluntary service offers an additional field of experience with other cultures.
In addition to the offered opportunities in the school, the volunteers can also have a look at our boarding school. In this area, there is also the possibility to get involved according to prior arrangements. We have already had volunteers who accompanied for example our "swimming group". This means, at this point the volunteers have to decide for themselves how much they are prepared to "invest". In order to add further to the working hours (inter alia because of school holidays), there is the possibility that the volunteers accompany a holiday activity. And also, this offers the opportunity to get to know our children and young people from a different side during these holiday courses.

The volunteers can contribute their interests and faculties to the project in an uncomplicated atmosphere and therefore make an important contribution to the extention of the educational program. They either work in a team and support the staff in their work or carry out small projects on their own, in which they are free to let their origin and culture leave their mark on these projects. On the one hand, the volunteers will learn the German language or, respectively, improve their language faculties. On the other hand, they will test their social abilities and gain self-confidence. They will get to know German society, the German educational system and German culture as well as different mentalities. By way of contacts within the EVS, at work or during their personal leisure time, the volunteers can get to know people and form friendships, which can go beyond the EVS.
The volunteers will get to know different supplies for handicapped people and will be made familiar with the integration of handicapped persons into society. Moreover, they will get a detailed insight into the execution and everyday life of caring professions.

This experience year is accompanied pedagogically by regular evaluating and analysing conversations. The volunteers take part in all discussions and teams and can make their contributions to everything.

Importance is attached to the fact that the volunteers also integrate themleves into the local community. It is the aim of this project that by way of the experiences gained in the EVS the volunteers obtain not only linguistic, intercultural and professional competences but also social and personal ones.
This increase in competences can be rendered even more effective if it is always taken care of the fact that 2 to 3 volunteers work simultaneously in the institution. Also, the rural environment offers better opportunities concerning adaption and integration if 2 to 3 persons can organize this phase of their lives here together.


2. Activities of the volunteers:
The volunteer will basically work in one group of the school internal kindergarden or of the school for mentally handicapped children. This way she/he has the possibility to build personal relationships to the children or young people of the group. Apart from this she/he has the possibility to get to know other areas of the institution like for example the early-advice center or the physiotherapie and as well in a regular way accompany the children and young persons of one group of the boarding school during their leisure time. During the voluntary service it is as well possible to change the area after consultation of the skilled workers. Under no circumstances do the volunteers substitute another employee. They are put to action only additionally and it would be desirable if they could also integrate their own cultural traditions into the educational work.

The support of the handicapped children and young people in their activtities is intensified and enriched by their contribution. This is in particular made possible by the fact that the volunteers additionally take care of the children and young persons individually.

In detail, the following activities are suggested to the volunteers:

- organisation of group life before and after school
- participation in the organisation of school activities
- assistance at learning practical faculties of everyday life
- assistance at school lessons
- individual support during school activities and surveillance of homework
- participation in the organisation of the pupils' leisure time
- participation in the organisation of school activities: help with the singing group, the swimming group, during activities like snoezeln, story reading, attendance at physiotherapy, parents' evenings, overlapping school activities and at being on duty during break
- participation in the organisation and execution of events and holiday courses

The volunteers' interests are taken into account by the fact that the volunteers participate in determining the main focus of their activities, for example, the choice of the class, or by the possiblity that they can offer new leisure time activities for the children and young people. The working hours in the school and in the boarding school are different.

A volunteer's schedule could, for example, look like this: On mondays he/she takes part in the team discussions and afterwards supports the staff in a class/group. This support is not reduced to caring actions but can according to the volunteer's interests and involvement also be extended to small projects, which are arranged and accompanied by the skilled staff, in order to be able to integrate, if possible, the intercultural opportunities.
One possibility would be that a project "Europe" can also be supplemented by the volunteer's own experiences. In this way, customary dances, music or culinary specialities can easily be made the topic of the lesson or in a group. On Monday afternoons, the joint planning of the class' or group's week is usually on the agenda. A weekly programme and the respective personal activities are talked about and discussed by all persons involved in the education. The volunteers can involve themselves entirely according to their faculties and abilities. A high level of self-responsibility and the ability to work in a team is demanded. However, in this way, the volunteers have the possibility to determine the frame within which they want to involve themselves. Activities are always accompanied and also explained technically by skilled workers.
The rest of the week (Tuesday to Thursday) is marked by a similar course of lessons/groups.
Only the discussions are reduced to daily conferences on the corridor, during which current issues are settled ("Flur-Blitz" - corridor lightning). This means, duty starts at about 08:15 and continues till about 15:15. Of course, a regular break is part of the schedule, during which there is time for personal conversation with other young people, like, for example, other colleagues of the same age (persons doing community service). This latter group of colleagues takes on to some degree, if necessary, the pedagogical leisure time accompaniment of the volunteers. On Fridays, duty ends already at about 13:30.
A further possibility of working at Bregtal School is to be put in action in the boarding school.
This depends entirely upon where and in what way the voluteers wish to be put in action. We have found that it can absolutely make sense to change areas or get to know several departements. Thus, it would also be possible that the 2 to 3 young adults work in different areas.

C.
Our objectives concerning the voluntary service are:
- to integrate particularities of other cultures into the educational work at Bregtal School
- to enrich the educational work at our institution with the volunteers' personal faculties and interests
- to cut down fears to get in contact with others cultures


- consequently, the volunteers who want to involve themselves at Bregtal School should above all be sociable and able to work in a team and willing to approach people.
- as regards integration into the region's social life, it is also necessary that the two or three volunteers build a kind of "tandem" and are able to cooperate.
- they should enjoy working with handicapped children and young people, even if they don't want to continue this work as their later profession, but appreciate it as an experience
- they are absolutely expected to make every effort to learn and speak the German language

The procedure of the selection of the volunteer is normally the following: Through contacts to different sending organizations all over Europe we announce that we have a vacant EVS place for September 1st. Thereupon the sending organizations present the motivation letter and the CV of the interested persons (by mail). In the last time, the volunteers send quite often their candidature directly on their own, as a result of detailed researches in the EVS databank. On the basis of the different motivation letters and CVs we confer together with the employee of the DPWV about which candidature is the most convenient candidature for our project "Bregtalschule". Of course we respect the individual vision and ideas of the volunteer, if she/he already has some previous knowledge or experience and above all where she/he could give his best support to the pedagogues due to his skills. The most important factor thereby is that the volunteer is open-minded about the work with children and young persons with candicap and that she/he brings in willingness to build personal relationships to them. Thereby it is also important that she/he is prepared to learn the German language. In the finally decision special experiences and knowledge figure not that much, of course it would be suitable if the volunteer already has some German knowledge or some experience with young people, but the deciding point is the general impression and the personal possibilities of pedagogical support.

The organization sending the volunteer should accompany the young adult and inform the hosting project intensively about the candidate. We also wish an accompanying contact, which can quite possibly be reduced to e-mails but a direct contact is prefered by us. We are as well very willing to offer organizational support in order to make a contemporary stay in Furtwangen possible.


In addition to the tasks our volunteers are assigned, we would like to mention that because of our peripheral location in the middle of the Black Forest we would like to ensure that the volunteers integrate themselves as "Europeans" into the rather rural structures or, even better, that 3 volunteers stay in our institution. In this way, the European idea can be met even more acurately.
In order to provide an easier integration the volunteers can live together with persons doing a german community service in a flat at the centre of Furtwangen. Here, an already prepared situation is meant to enforce integration and exchange in the field of leisure time as well.
Furthermore, we consider it very desirable that, depending on the situation as regards interest and number of applicants, it can be made possible that our existant partnerships with schools and cooperations with other European countries (Poland, Hungary and France) can thereby obtain a new quality.

E.
The project is accompanied by a German association in the social field named DPWV (Deutscher
Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband). That means that the volunteer has a additional contact person both before beginning and during its EVS. So before the beginning of the EVS the journey is planned in cooperation with this association and more information is given about the institution, the work and the life in the local community (also in assistance of the present volunteer). Thus the volunteer can get a better idea of what the project is and where he will to live. During the EVS there are both regular evaluations with the tutor (about the schedule, the integration, own ideas/ suggestions/ projects, the accomodation, the food, the allowance, etc.) and at least twice a year evaluations with the employee of the DPWV (about the carrying out/realization of the project, the general results and problems of any type).
The tutor and the other pedagogues in the Bregtalschule Furtwangen help as well in any kind of question or problem. The volunteer can directly ask. The employee of the DPWV can be reached as well everytime and the same should be the case of the sending organization. Therefore the volunteer has two independent advicers out of the Bregtalschule at his disposal.
We ask a minimum of self-initiative, that means that the volunteer should speak by hisself about his problems as early as posible and not wait until the last minute. But there will be as well regular meetings with the tutor.
If there will be a kind of crisis the mentioned persons should act as a mediator.