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

During the weekend the Centre is attended by about one thousand children and youngsters. In our organization 9 educators and 8 people of the staff work and there are also about 16 others who collaborate as volunteers.

Humenné is a center in the Easter part of Slovakia, 400 km away from Bratislava, and lies 157 m above the sea level between the biggest city of this area, Kosice and Presov.

The city takes place is a area about 100 km away from three borders with Poland, Ukraine and Hungary. Besides it is only 100 km distant from Satu Mare in Marmaros in Rumania.

The population of the city is over 36 000 and its life is rich in cultural and sports events. Moreover our city provides various possibillities to spend free time during the weekends as for example: swimming, playing tennis, cinema, skating, two cultural centres, Youth club, internetcafé, Centre of free time, library, horse riding school.

The surroundings of Humenne, with their romantic ruins of medieval castles, and an open-air museum of wooden architecture situated in the city park, provide a source of knowledge and relaxation. The most significant town monument is Renaissance castle built in place of an original stone castle of the 1610.

The city is a starting point for tourism, which offers numerous opportunities in the picturesque countryside of the East Carpathians, though this field still waits for more intensive business activities. The most attractive places are tha Vihorlat hills that boasts their Morske oko lake, and the Polonina Carpathians at the boundaries of Slovakia, Poland and Ukraine.

Food and Accomodation

Volunteers are hosted in a flat situated next to the Centre of leisure time Dúha where their activities take place. The flat is ample and comfortable, is constituted by two bedrooms (every volunteer will have his/her own bedroom), a living room, a kitchen, a balcony, a bathroom and is equipped with many appliances (washing machine, microwave owen, fridge, television, radio, dvd player and iron). Money for eating will be provided to the volunteers at the beginning of every month. We will suggest them to eat lunch during the week in the school canteen (which is just 500 metres away from their flat) because it´s cheaper but if they will prefer cooking for themselves and eating in their flat of course they can.

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

Our organisation has already experiences with hosting volunteers, because we hosted 8 volunteers from different countries under European voluntary service. We have a lot of activities in which the volunteers could be active. We are ready to help the volunteers realizing their dreams.

Support:

Volunteer will have full support from all the workers of our organisation: we have had experiences with volunteers from 4 year. Especially they can ask to be helped to their mentor or to their supervisor. Moreover volunteers will have a teacher of slovak language.

Role:

The volunteer´s role will consist in cooperating with workers in our organisation. Volunteer will work mostly in our free club but if he/she likes can also take part in other activities in areas corresponding to his/her hobbies and interests. The volunteer will help them on current activities prepared by Centre of leisure time. He/she will work for about 30 hours per week and will have the possibility to ask 2 days of holiday each month.

Opportunity:

- use possibility to cooperate with russian and roma´s minority, he/she will have oportunity to

learn how to be tolerant with different etnic group

- work with children and youth

- pick up skills in this leisure time activities

- intercultural learning - contact with public

- to prepare his/her own little project

- to know about traditional Slovak food and folklore, history

Volunteer´s tasks

The main task of the volunteers is to work in the creative club of our centre where children and especially young people can spend their spare time preparing and realising activities. Here youngsters can use computers and go on internet, play table tennis, football tabe, biliard, see dvd, they can arrenge project and activities and discuss together. This is a meeting point for youngsters and for this reason making friendships and be involved in our community will be easier for volunteers. The club is attended mostly by children and youngsters who live in disadvantaged situations: they are poor, they have problems with families and drunk parents, they have difficulties in learning and are used to spend their free time in the streets without any helping. Volunteer, together with workers, can talk with them trying to become friends for them, help to solve their problems, they can play with them and after sometimes they can also help them with their homework. They can use their skills, hobbies and knowledges, according to their wishes, to enrich our centre and moreover they can learn new abilities attending the activities of our organization. With this purpose volunteers can also take part actively in the organization and realization of the other several activities of our centre and possibly suggest new ideas and make proposals.

We organize many activities: dancing courses (hip hop, aerobic, break dance, majorettes, folk dances and Roma´s dance), musical courses (instruments lessons, orchestra and choir), English and informatics lessons, drawing and modelling courses, karate, joga, the newspaper of the Centre (written by young people who attend our Centre) and the students´s parlament (constituted by students from middle and high school that promote projects and organize events).

They work from Monday until Friday, especially in the afternoon when the activities take place. During the weekends they can spend their time according to their own interests. We offer them a Slovak weekly language course which will be intensive especially in the first part of their EVS.

In the summer we usually organize camps or some activities and volunteers are asked to help us.

Volunteer ´s time schedule in percents

· working in opened and creative club with chldren and youngsters: 30%

· leisure time activities in courses organized by educators working in the centre: 20 %

· meeting with worker of Centre, changing skills; workers will help him/her if volunteer need it: 10%

· language course with a private teacher 1 hour three times a week: 10 % of activities

· visit some centres of leisure time of leisure time in this region to learn new skills and different acrivities: 10 %

· prepare music, costumes, prepare poster for the courses, advertisings. Volunteers will learn to handle with PC and musical mechanism. After volunteer will prepare important things on course: 10 %

· help near activities organizing by Centre, make proposals and operate for these courses: 10 %

Volunteer´ s day

7,30 - 8,30 Breakfast

8,30 - 11,30 leisure, know town and surroundings, meetings with workers and director of the Centre

11,30 - 12,30 Lunch with workers of the centre in school canteen from Monday till Friday and during the weekends lunch in restaurants or according to the agreement with volunteers.

12,30 - 13,30 language course with a private teacher

13,30 - 14,00 free time/coffe break with workers

14,00 - 15,30 attend activities in our courses, prepare music, costumes, poster for the courses, advertisings, learn to handle with PC and musical mechanism

15,30 - 19,00 leisure time activities in opened and creative club with children and youth, together with educators working in the centre

19,00 dinner, free time

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

Our project is opened to all young people from Europe. We welcome everybody who enjoys joining our project. Volunteers will learn many new things and will know our country, which is small but very interesting.

D. Special needs:

We are able to host volunteers with fewer oportunities /from cultural differences,economic difficulties, geographical difficulties/ for long term project.

E. Risk prevention, safety and protection

At the beginning of volunteer´s Evs we will provide him/her informations about the structure and rules of our organization. We´ll give him/her a phone card and useful numbers to call in case of necessity or emergency (numbers of police, firemen, hospital, etc.). If volunteers will have any problems with their flat in our organization there is a person who is responsible of the building and can help them in case of thecnical problems.

Anyway Humenné is a small, beatiful and safe city and we have never had any problems with last volunteers about their safety and protection. Besides the flat is in good conditions and is located on the main street of the city.

Sending

Sending organization: Centre of leisure time Rainbow - HumennéComplete this part only in case you are applying for acreditation as the sending organization. The following items in the table serve as a guide for completion of the application form Expression of Interest for sending organizations.

A. Aims and motivation·

As organization working in the youth field, with educational and informative aims, we recognize that sending young people in EVS projects gives them a great opportunity to travel abroad, to know other cultures, to improve their abilities and live an experience of learning, growth and active citizenship.We would like to offer chance also for young people with fewer oportunities to participate on the project /from cultural differences,economic difficults,geogfafical difficultes,health problems,disability/.

B. Preparation of the volunteer·

Many young people attend our organisation and can find here informative material. We can help them before EVS, also with the help of regional consultant of Youth in Action Program, who works in our centre. Moreover we will promote the program in some mass-media (local television and newspapers) and prepare workshops and seminars in schools.

· Mrs. Darina Baranèikova has worked in our centre for five years, she is regional consultant of Youth in Action Program and has a long experience in youth-education field. In our centre she is the person in charge of preparation of EVS volunteers, youth exchanges and initiatives. She speaks English and manages contacts with european partners.

· We will be constantly in contact with the organizations partner and with our volunteers, using email or telephone, in each step of the project, in order to arrenge together the preparation and find solutions for problems and conflicts, if there will be some.

· To actively involve the volunteer in the process of preparation we will prepare information activities and workshops about Youth in Action Program, we will help them to choose the project and organize meetings with ex-volunteers to share their experiences.We want also to organize pre-departure language courses and specific trainings about the field in wich volunteers are going to work.

· Each volunteer will have AXA insurance, as forseen by the program.

· Each volunteer will participate in the pre-departure training, which is organized periodically by National Agency in Slovakia.

· Our voluteers will be helped in preparation of their stay abroad, in finding information about hosting countries, also throught the contacts with hosting organisations and with the net of ex-volunteers. We will ask to hosting organization the contacts of their previous volunteers. We will manage for them intensive language course.

· We think that most of the problems in which volunteers can incur could be solved with a good comunication between the organizations. So we will keep a close contact and ask to volunteers and to their hosting organisations to refer to us for each kind of problem, in order to work in facilitating communication.C.

Profile, background and motivation of the volunteer

· We think that the volunteer personal profile depends of the kind of project and we will work to help each young person to do the good choice. Moreover we think that each volunteer must have a strong motivation and be enough open minded to live this kind of experience.

· Our organization is opened to every young people and has potential to send also volunteers with special needs, disable people or people coming from a disadvantaged background. We will help everybody, because we want to work for equal opportunity.

· We know that the major priority of the program Youth in Action is to work mainly with volunteers with limited opportunities. D. Contact with the volunteer· The periodicity of the contacts with volunteers will depend on the course of the projects. Usually they are more frequent at the begining, but the volunteers can refer to us in every moment. We will phone or write to them to check their situation and we are open to send them

D. Contact with the volunteer

· The periodicity of the contacts with volunteers will depend on the course of the projects. Usually they are more frequent at the begining, but the volunteers can refer to us in every moment. We will phone or write to them to check their situation and we are open to send them some material by post, if they need.

E. Follow-up activities

· After project termination we think is very useful to write final report with active participation of the volunteer, to check his feelings and have a direct feedback. Moreover the volunteer can be involved in other follow up activities, as promotion of the program and help for new volunteers.The volunteers can have the support of our organisation and use our office (computer, printer, copy-machine, etc.) while their involvement in theese activities.

F. Experiences of SO

· Our organization don´t have direct experience in sending volunteers, but our workers have and we would like to exploit this opportunity, in order to give one more chance to our youngsters. Moreover we can use our experence as hosting organization to help the volunteers that we are going to send in EVS.

G. Description of the organization

The centre of leisure time in Humenné is an organization whose main purpose is to promote a better use of free time. For these reason in our centre there are about 50 courses which children and young people can attend. During the weekend the Centre is attended by about one thousand children and youngsters. In our organization 9 educators and 8 people of the staff work and there are also about 16 others who collaborate as volunteers.

Our organisation has already experience with hosting volunteers, because we hosted 8 volunteers from different countries under European voluntary service.We are ready to help to send volunteers to EVS projects. The preparation of sending projects will involve our responsible of volunteers, together with volunteers and director of the organisation.

The centre of leisure time has many previous experiences in hosting EVS volunteers because we´ve taken part in this program since 2002 and in the last years we worked with eight youngsters from different part of Europe.This project has the main aim to let european young people know another country, a different culture with its meals, language and manners. In this way he/she will know new facts and learn new skills. We would like to export our culture and traditions and make foreigners know about the beauties of our country. Moreover we decided to join this project because we think that this could be a way to enrich our organization with other cultures and ideas. For this purpose volunteers during their EVS are taking part in the activities and courses of our centre, considering their interests and skills, and are being encouraged to promote their own ideas to create new activities or to improve the existent ones. Working in our organization let them meet new people and make friendships easier because it is attended by many people every day.We would like to be sending organisation also and to give chance to young people from Slovakia to participate on the EVS projects in different part of Europe.

The Centre of leisure time in Humenné is a governamental institution which has the main aim to prepare activities and interesting courses that children and youngsters, between 6-26, can attend in their free time. Indeed these activities run in the building of our Centre from Monday till Friday, in the morning and in the afternoon. We organize many activities: dancing courses (hip hop, aerobic, break dance, majorettes, folk dances and Roma´s dance), musical courses (instruments lessons, orchestra and choir), English and informatics lessons, drawing and modelling courses, karate, joga, the newspaper of the Centre (written by young people who attend our Centre) and the students´s parlament (constituted by students from middle and high school that promote projects and organize events). Sometimes the Centre runs also during the weekends in which we arrenge some special activities or trips and during the summer we organize camps for children.Moreover in the Centre there is a creative club where children and especially young people can spend their spare time preparing and realising activities and in other rooms people can also play games, realize sort of musical activities, listen to music or find some information on internet.The activities are organized in cooperation with parents and youngsters in order to allow young people to ignore drugs, cigarettes and alcohol and to advice a better use of leisure time.Sometimes the Centre runs also during the weekends in which we arrenge some activities or trips and during the summer we organize camps for children.