Project environment:

Hosting organization Club On Line is a low threshold facility for young people at the age of 15 to 22 years. The mission of the Club is: "Being On Line means to be available and close to young people in needs". The low-threshold facility Club On Line creates a place of security and confidence for adolescent youth in city Karvina in Moravian-Silesian region. "We listen to stories that young people experience and through supporting them, together we try to find the way in their present and future life."

In On Line there are working 5 full-time workers and 2 national volunteers from university students who help local young people with social exclusion (unemployed young people, youngsters with personal problems, with drug dependence, coming from disrupted families). The Club is opened during working days from 14.00 to 19.00 and provides three programmes for about 50 clients:

- Club On Line - the programme is aimed on contacting youth in the club and in their natural environment. The Club offers a low-threshold services; i.e. its services are provided for free, anonymously, clients are allowed freely to come and go, to participate in mutual activities or not.

- Streetwork On Line - endeavours to make contacts with young people in their natural environment (housing estate, parks, skate-parks) and offers them a social support.

- Centre of primary prevention realizes its preventive activities at schools in the frame of thematic lectures and discussions with pupils on various themes (e.g. Racism and tolerance, Youth and drugs, Domestic violence).

We want to host two volunteer in above-mentioned programmes Club On Line and Streetwork On Line for 12 months with the beginning in September.

Club On line is involved in the Working group of The Threshold Facilities for Kids and Youth (NZDM) in Moravian-Silesian region and is also a member of Czech Association of Streetwork combining a low-threshold oriented services for adolescent youth. (www.onlinekarvina.cz )

Local community

The hosting project will be running in city Karvina that has about 67 thousand of inhabitants. The city is situated in the north promontory of Beskydy mountains which lies in the valley of the Olse river and it is situated 18 km to the east from regional capital Ostrava. A part of the north border of Karvina creates simultaneously the state border with Poland.

Even if it does not seem so, this industrial and mining city is also a city with a rich cultural and social opportunities. The city offers possibilities for several cultural events during a year: films in the several cinemas and open-air cinema, art performances, exhibitions, concerts in a community centre. There are also few music clubs, covered swimming pool, tennis courts, ice-stadium, squash centre.

There are also a famous Spa Darkov situated in a beautiful spa park in the city limits of Karvina (www.karvina.org www.karvina.info www.karvina.cz).

Proposed activities for EVS volunteers:

We want to host two volunteers in two bellow described activies. The project begins in September and lasts 12 months.

1. Club On Line

The low-threshold centre Club On Line for kids and youth is based on contact work and communication with users. By involving into activities of the centre, the volunteers will have possibilities for learning practical hard skills (Czech language, knowledge of social system in Czech Republic,..) as well as soft skills (communication, intercultural self-awareness, self-confidence,…).

During first 3 months they will be supposed to learn a basic of Czech language. First three months they will be mostly observing everyday life in the centre to settle in and get to know the rules, programme and users. After this period the volunteers should be able to communicate basically and they will help in taking care of clients in a PC room (reservation of users, watching after observing rules, changing users). Gradually they will be led to higher self-reliance, limited responsibility and higher active role in finding possibilities for contacting users for instance through leisure-time activities (table soccer, summer sport games in a garden). After first three month the volunteers should be able to notice rule-breaking followed by drawing users attention to that. The volunteers will be allowed to take part in counselling conversations with the agreement of users to get to know more about social services. The volunteers will also help with an administrative work, too - printing documents, creating advertising materials for club events.

The volunteers will also learn through the internal reflection and individual training courses during service and by exchanging their experiences with other staff members and national volunteers.

The hosting organisation gives a continual support for volunteers through regular supervision sessionswith their supervisor who will support them during the voluntary service. The mentors of volunteers will help them to settle in, to make new friendships and to take part in activities of local community. The volunteers can make the contacts with the other international and national volunteers serving in other hosting organizations. They will also get a reflection on culture diversity and intercultural awareness of the different nationalities living in region Silesia (Czechs, Poles, Roma).

The volunteers will receive a language training after coming to the placement - an intensive language course (30 hours), and during the service a continual language training for 2 hours a week.

There will be also an opportunity to visit other projects run by Silesian Diacony in the region to gain an overview of the organisation structure and the standard of provided services.

Club On Line offers the volunteers putting their own interests and ideas together with experiences gained during voluntary service to create their own project. The "size" of the own project will depend on the volunteers, e.g. sport tournaments, presentation evening about "culture of my home country".

Criteria of the project: 1. Own idea, 2. Idea discussed with the staff, 3. The children, youth and the local community are the actors, not only receivers, 4. The volunteers are participating in learning process. The staff of host organisations advice volunteers as needed.

Activities in Club On Line are running in afternoon hours:

- Preparation for a day with social workers (10%)

- Contact work in Club (helping social workers with making contacts with youth, listening to them, accompanying, building a mutual confidence, advising, looking for suitable solutions in case of having problems) (30%)

- Volunteer's workshop (1x - 2x a week) - The volunteers can prepare and propose together with a social worker any activities according to their skills and abilities for the clients of Club. The best would be to follow users needs and interest. (40%)

- The volunteers can continue the contact work in Club or can reflect and evaluate their activities or plan other ones. The office equipment (i.e. PC, office and art equipment) is fully for their disposal. (20%)

The volunteers are allowed to have 30 minutes break according to their need and needs of the facility during the day.

Total: 6,0 hours

2. Streetwork On Line

Streetwork On Line is an outdoor service. The main activity is laid on searching youngsters who are used to spend their time on a street. The project Contact On Line ("Caravan") is aimed on work with Roma youth. The contact point for activities will be the caravan which is situated in one part of Roma locality. There is living 80% of Roma population. The volunteer will help a professional streetworker with approach Roma youth in this location. The working day of streetworker and volunteer will consist of two parts. The first half of afternoon they will streetwork on streets and then in the second half they will move to a contact place - parked caravan. They are supposed to be contacted by Roma youth there. The outdoor work is mainly based on a conversation with users. This specific work with Roma community above all demands understanding the way of Roma living, temperament and ability to manage conflict situations from side of volunteers. In order to be prepared for that, the volunteers will be provided with streetworker´s support and trained for working with this target group before and during the project.

Activities in Streetworking On Line are running in afternoon hours:

- Preparation for a day with streetworker (10%)

- Streetworking (helping streetworker with contacting Roma, making contacts with them, listening to them) (30%)

- Streetworking in the caravan (building a mutual confidence with Roma youth, advising, accompanying, looking for suitable solutions in case of having problems) - the volunteer can prepare and propose together with a streetworker any activities according to her/his skills and abilities for Roma youth. The best would be to follow users needs and interest. (40%)

- Return to Club On Line office - The volunteers can reflect and evaluate their activities or plan other ones. The office equipment (i.e. PC, office and art equipment) is fully for their disposal. (10%)

The volunteers are allowed to have 30 minutes break according to their needs and need of the streetworking during the day.

Total: 6,0 hours

We want to host two volunteers for both two projects, who will change themselves. This means:

1. volunteer - 2 days in Club On Line and 3 days Streetwork On Line

2. volunteer - 3 days in Club On Line and 2 days Streetwork On Line

This proposed schedule is not fixed and may be changed according to abilities of volunteers, their motivations and interests.

Volunteer profiles and recruitment process:

The volunteers come from different countries, social background, and church denomination, but share a desire to serve and grow. The volunteers need to have a willingness of integration into Centre's life, willing to work with socially excluded and Roma youth, to be able to work in team, has sufficient amount of patience, flexibility and creativity. Very important are good communication skills and willingness to learn Czech language to overcome a language barrier in communication with clients especially.

The other qualities would include:

- openness and optimism

- ability to adapt into different activities for young people

- respectful attitude to people with different lifestyle and recognizing other values

Candidates are asked to send an application form, motivation letter, curriculum vitae, and 3 reference letters written by persons who know the potential candidate through both formal and informal activities.

Special needs (if applicable):

Club On Line is open to hosting volunteers with fewer opportunities especially from Roma minority - the volunteers that come from a socially excluded background and are disadvantaged in regard to education and social standards. The volunteers will be provided by reinforced mentorship - accompanying person, additional preparation and support (participation in two special seminars).

Risk prevention, protection and safety:

Upon arrival the volunteers will be picked up by their mentor or supervisor, who will provide them with a support for the whole hosting time.

The volunteers will attend on-arrival seminar, where the project will be introduced and they will be able to meet the project coordinator.

The mentor will show the volunteers their new home and will assist them to cope with changes. The mentor will also give them the important information about the community and the area. The mentor will help the volunteers meet new friends and find leisure-time activities. The mentor is available at any time to help resolve any personal problems, not explicitly related to work.

The supervisor will introduce the new workplace to the volunteers and will explain the details about the work. Before starting any activity, the supervisor will inform the volunteers about the level of risk of each activity. Every month the volunteers and the supervisor will have a supervision session where they will discuss the work, improvement and training as well as personal problems, which can disclose in working area.

The project coordinator will be consistently in touch with the supervisor, mentor and the volunteers (through meetings, writing or phone contact) where he will observe and evaluate the volunteers attitudes in any critical situations in the work place or personal life. If he sees any problems he will contact straightaway the mentor or supervisor and they will try to solve it. If the problem cannot be resolved the project coordinator will operate according to the directions of Silesian Diacony.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=26000211615