ORGANISATIONS INVOLVED IN THIS EVS PROJECT
Coordinating organization: NGO Stichting Tripin
Tripin is active now for six years in Almere. Tripin her goal is to help organizations with making their work more international. There could be said that Tripin gives other organizations the opportunity to give a whole different dimension to their work. As from this year on, Tripin functions under the flag of NGO Multiversum wich works with art and music workshops for urban youth in Almere. In the last six years we hosted eight youth exchanges, sent two EVS volunteers, hosted seven EVS volunteers and attended a lot of other projects all around Europe.
Hosting organization: NGO Triade-Flevoland
Triade was created in 1999 out of a fusion between different NGO’s in the province of Flevoland in The Netherlands. Triade itself is a young organisation, but knows a long history.
More then 35 years ago in the Noordoostpolder (Nord-East Polder) on initiative from parents the first location in the province of Flevoland for children with a mental handicap was realised. The children daycare center “De paddestoel” (The Mushroom) in Emmeloord was a fact. Later on the need existed for a day activity center for elderly people en accomodation facilities for elderly people. This history repeated itself in Almere and Lelystad, both new cities on a new piece of land in Flevoland. All the different activities run in the social field from elderly people to children daycare centra, even as activity centers for disabled people had different NGO’s run by volunteers. In 1993 the different NGO’s started to work together and created a central bureau. More cooperation in the same field of work with different NGO’s made it that in 1999 The last two big organisation in this field, after alot of fusions and cooperations, merged together for the last time and changed their name into “Triade” Triade knows a rough development during the last years. This development does not stand on it’s own. Changes of law and the development of new methodolgies made it that Triade had to be active and be always one step ahead of the developments. The most important aim was and will always be that our care and help more and more fits to the need of the client.
1.800 people work at Triade who give a big variety of assistance, care and helping. Next to people with a mental handicap also people with more complex handicaps, children,families, people with psychiosocial problems or psychiatric disabilities use the assistance that Triade offers in their daily live. The most important objective is to help vunerable people in their daily life to take activly part in society. Triade want to be a proffessional and creative partner for this vunerable people.

SOCIAL AND WORK ENVIRONMENT
As EVS volunteer at Triade-Flevoland you will be part of a small group of volunteers that work on the day activity centre of Triade-Flevoland. The volunteer will be in close contact with the other volunteers, and will probably work on the same location. Triade-Flevoland is located on different locations in Flevoland, but this project only takes place in different activity centres located in Almere. A website with information can be found here: http://www.triade-flevoland.nl/. Unfortantly the information is only available in Dutch because it is pointed out for people with less opportunities in the Netherlands. You will live in a house together with others in one of the residential areas of the city. There is a chance you have to share a room together with other volunteers for sleeping, but you will have the whole house for living. This gives you a good opportunity to participate in social activities and learn more about the Dutch culture. Triade-Flevoland also organizes different meetings for all the volunteers and friends of the organization once a while.
As coordinating organization Tripin will arrange the necessary things like the obligated training courses for EVS volunteers, language courses, pocket money etc. (if you want to know more about your rights as an EVS volunteer, please download the youth in action program guide) Tripin wil also be a social platform to get in touch with EVS volunteers from other projects and activities held by partner NGO’s in Almere and the rest of the country.

ACTIVITIES
The volunteer is working in a very active and flexible foundation. Despite there is a project description, the volunteer will have a lot of personal freedom. This means that there is enough space to grow in the organisation besides the fixed activities. Of course the foundation will give a structure in which the volunteer can find his challenge. The volunteer can learn how it is to work in a field with a small power-distance. If there are things that you think can be changed to benefit the organisation in the volunteering work you are doing, you are more then welcome to share your opinion with the teamleaders.
Because Triade-Flevoland and Tripin prefer to have volunteers for 1 year. The volunteers will have the oppurtunity to grow in the organization. Also there are possibilities to see all the aspects of working in Triade-Flevoland. However during to law not all tasks can be performed because some help must be provided by skillend workers wich have a diploma for the work they perform. There will be fixed patterns and tasks you have to perform on the application form but after some time there will be oppurtunities to change tasks. This kind of changes will be in cooperation with the sending organisation, volunteer and Triade-Flevoland (hosting organisation)

WHAT KIND OF ACTIVITIES DOES TRIPIN AND TRIADE OFFERS
Triade if an official internship organisation for offical scholar institutions in the
Netherlands. The volunteer can use all the services the employees of Triade can offer to
inters from scholar institutions. As Triade offers a wide scala of support there are also a
lot of different activities the EVS volunteer can assist. Basically people at Triade need
support in everyday life. Activities that are normal for the volunteer will be the activities
that the clients need guidance in. The volunteer is supposed to give this guidance for
everyday life. In a global context the volunteer can do the following activities during his
or her project:
Assist with swimming.
Assist with horseback riding.
Assist the clients with cooking.
Be there for lonely clients and just have a chat.
Assist the clients in daytime spending activities like: handcraft, artcraft,socializing (board)games.
Offer the clients the oppurtunity to learn a foreign language in a course.
playing different kind of games.
to assist /give of computer courses.
to assist/give of several creative groups.
to assist/give of making clothes.
to assist /give language courses.
to assist a film course.
help with in the kitchen with the preparation of meals/lunch.
to help with/give of cooking lessons.
participate with sport activities.
assist of reception activities.
help with at administrative activities.
assist and/or lead workshops.
Be a partner in the ‘buddy for somebody with mental disabilities’ project.
Assist in everything else what you can do, but somebody with a disability can maybe not do alone.
As the volunteer will get more aqainted with the work they will have the opportunity to start creating projects himself. We will motivate this as much as possible. There is also the opportunity to join young people from the MBO, middle class education who do internships at Triade and learn in this way to implement and disseminate good practice within Triade.

PROFILE OF THE EVS VOLUNTEER
As this project is the maximum amount of time possible in a EVS project the volunteer must realize that Triade as hosting organization and Tripin as coordinating organization have some desires due to skills the volunteer must have.
Being able to speak good English.
Almost everybody in the Netherlands speaks very good English. You will develop your English skills further on in communicating with your fellow volunteers at Triade. Without the volunteer speaking English we will have a lot of problems to communicate. This is the most important criteria and this will be checked if you are pre-selected to do your EVS at NGO Triade.
Being motivated.
A project that last for 12 months is in need of motivated volunteers. Please show us in your motivation letter why you want to join one of the two projects
mentioned above.
Having experience with working in a NGO.
It would be good if (s)he would have a small experience in being active in an NGO in his/her own country to show that the person really wants to take part in exactly this project
Being able to deal with strict protocols
For your safety and for the sake of the clietns there are strict protocols to work by. You must be able to work by these protocols. Mistakes can be dangerous for you, your colleages and the clients.
Being able to find a decent sending organization or being member of one.
It’s important for the project that there is a decent sending organization which prepares you to join this EVS project. They will provide you a pre-departure training and give information about The Netherlands.
Having no problem to work one day in the weekend
Unfortunatly the clients don’t have a weekend brake like we do. This means you could work one saturday or sunday every week. Of course in return you will get one day free during the mid-week.