The "Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland" (BUND) is the German branch of Friends of the Earth. As a non-profit organisation working independently of state and industry we have commited ourselves to the protection of nature and the environment. We operate on all levels from local to national. In Ulm, we have more than 1500 members and supporters, in the surrounding region there are more than 7000.
The BUND-Umweltzentrum (information centre) Ulm is situated in the pretty city centre of Ulm. It is BUND's branch office for the city of Ulm and the surrounding region. 4 to 8 mostly young people work here either as paid employees or on an honorary basis. Our main tasks include: public relations, lobbying work, information on environmental issues, landscape development and conservation, influencing of nature sensitive planning work as well as structural work, youth work and administration.
BUND relies on the voluntary commitment of its active members. We are therefore very experienced in cooperating with volunteers. Moreover, we have been participating in a regional volunteer project focussed youth work for several years..

In an Europe that is growing ever closer we want to offer young people the chance to gain experience and make friends abroad. And vice versa, by contributing to the European Volunteer Service we hope to broaden the horizon for environmental issues in other European countries through "our" volunteers' experience and the resulting international contacts.

The volunteers will be integrated as full workers in our daily work. We will endeavour to support the volunteers as regards language and familiarity with methods and technical knowledge. We will help them find and enroll in German language courses.

Our volunteers' tasks will include the following (among others):

• planting trees and shrubs,
• mowing meadows, pruning trees
• visit of school classes and information
• dealing with telephone enquiries
• drawing up information leaflets
• planning and attending information stands and exhibitions
• organisation of and participation on action days
• support of current activities in the Umweltzentrum

It is important that the volunteers can work as independently as possible. Therefore we ensure that they will receive comprehensive induction and will be coached on a regular basis.

The volunteer placement will be published in the internet and spread over the contacts of the network of the supporting organization.We are ready to work with all kinds of sending organisation. The volunteer should be open minded, friendly, creative and willing to do a good job.

The volunteer will get the same risk prevention that our local volunteers get, and even more, he will get an every week supervision of the supporting organisation, together with all the other volunteers of the region. The volunteer will get language courses and we will help him in every kind of way to integrate in our community.