A. Project environment: profile of the organisation and local community

" Outline the project environment for the suggested voluntary activities, including the local community where the project will take place (e.g. geographical, social and economical environment).
" If the host placement is located in a live-in community, please include the rules and conditions that apply also for the volunteer.
Community: Latvia is an Eastern European country near the Baltic Sea, with 2.5 million inhabitants. Rezekne is a middle - sized Latvian town located in the Southeast of the state. The distance from Rezekne to the state capital Riga is 242 km. Some 42 thousand people inhabit the town. They have different nationalities, the most part of them are Latvians and Russians. Rezekne is rich in nature's gifts. The area of the region is famous for its lakes and planted hills, parks and woods that are a decoration for the town and excellent opportunities of recreation for visitors and inhabitants. There is a Higher Educational Institution, Music College, Art College, and theatres in Rezekne. Rezekne is famous for its unique ceramics, handcrafts and its traditions.
Our centre hosts both elderly people and mentally disabled people. Some of our seniors are still socially very active. We have to pay more attention and care to the mental and physical health of some of our other residents but they all enjoy being involved in different types of activities we offer to them. Also in our centre we take care of very sick and elderly pensioners. All of the people need a lot of attention and listening to, as most of them have little or no family left and tend to get withdrawn, by helping them we are able to integrate them into the social environment and local society. By taking care of them and helping them enjoy themselves and cope with emotions they encounter they are able to integrate into their social environment and into the society.

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

" Describe what you can offer to volunteers in terms of service and learning opportunities.
" Please, explain what will be the role of EVS volunteers in the host organisation.
" Describe the activities in which the volunteers could be involved and the activities the volunteers could create in your organisation. Give examples of typical activities for the volunteers.
Our centre requires four volunteers who will work together, the expectations we have of hosting young European Volunteers are to make our people's life in the centre more interesting and enthusiastic, to help them to get a real personal and social wellbeing. We hope for the volunteers and our people to learn from each other, to get a mutual enrichment, to build some bridges in the same time between the young and the former generation, and between nationalities. So, they will have the ability to build strong and trusty links with the residents, to be available for them and to spend time to understand their desire and requirement, to incite them to take part in different activities by organizing and proposing more social and cultural leisure.
Our staff are very hard working and not always available to spend as much of their time as they would like to with each of the residents. We hope the volunteer will fill the gap by spending their time with the residents, discussing issues or just listening to them. We hope they will be able to develop communication in our centre between the residents themselves, and also between the residents and the staff, to become a communicable relay between the different entities constituting our centre, because each element has an essential role for the good work of our institution. So, by listening and being attentive, they will have to understand their needs, to organize some activities corresponding to these wishes, to help us to prevent the danger of isolation, marginality and lack of communication and finally to allow them to remain being active longer and to keep contact with the outside world.
To sum up, we hope in the same time to provide young Europeans with the opportunity to discover life in our country, to allow our people to touch our new reality by an enthusiastic way and to promote the European integration.
The volunteers will work there on week days from 9.00 am to 12.00 and from 1.00 pm to 4.00 pm. But sometimes the timetable can change according to the different events and celebrations organized in the centre (work in the evening, sometimes during the week-end, for example to accompany some excursions…)
On arrival at the centre the volunteers will be given training and provided with an intensive language course in the first month that the volunteers must attend. After this if they desire we can organise regular language lessons twice a week.
A typical working day:
9.00 am - 10.00 am: preparation for the day's activities,
10.00 am - 12.00 am: working with old people, helping the staff organize events
12.00 am - 13.00 pm: lunch
13.00 pm - 14.00 pm: development of new leisure activities
14.00 pm - 16.00 pm: Working with old people, helping the staff organize events
The volunteers will truly be considered as a member of the team. They will also take an active part in our work meetings, chat groups. They will be involved in the animation activities of the centre, as leading some discussion, workshops or preparing celebrations, and will have especially the task to incite the most isolated people to go to the group and to integrate it.
They will have to be company for our residents: Talking and listening to them, reading books, playing and organizing some games, going for walks, helping them to go shopping; talking to the people who are very ill especially those who cannot leave their bed or reading them the newspaper to keep them connected to the reality of the world they live in.
They will also be in charge of organizing and developing new social and cultural activities inside and outside the centre: to help in the preparation of celebrations, to organize different activities as games, cultural events and visits, arts and craft, daily and evening out. We are expecting and open to the offers the volunteer may bring from his/her own experience.
As a way for our residents to learn about other countries and traditions, another part of the volunteer's job will be to make our residents discover his/her own culture, by organizing different kind of animations: exhibitions, special weeks (for example a taste week, traditional week…), discussion groups, specific decoration, traditional cuisine from his/her country, language lessons… We can also imagine different events according to the own skills of the volunteer: if he/she is a musician, some small concerts, if he/she is a visual artist some exhibitions of his/her own creations…

A typical week/day will look as follow: preparation of the daily/weekly activities (30%), work on special events and celebrations (20%), organisation of animations about his/her own culture (20%), development of new leisure activities (20%), other tasks according to volunteer's skills (10%).

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

Please describe the profiles of volunteers you would like to receive in your organisation. Include information on how you ensure an open and transparent recruitment process as well as the overall accessibility of EVS to all young people. Consider further information about the type of sending organisation you want to cooperate with. This information can help the match-making between volunteer candidates, sending organisations and your organisation.

The volunteers will have to show interest and sensibility towards old people and will be able to use and show empathy, integrity and to be considerate. All skills which can allow them to develop new animations in our centre are welcomed.
We hope they are ready to take creative duties and to be responsible and autonomous enough to propose, prepare and organize new activities and their own work according to these skills.