A. Project environment

"Mrowisko" ("Ant-hill")is sittuated in the Gdynia (250.000 inhabitans) by the Baltic Sea. Gdynia builds, together with the cities of Gdañsk and Sopot, the so called Tricity. It is (approximately 800 000 citizens) the biggest aglomeration in the Pomeranian region and therefore has a lot of actvities to choose from. Apart from its multicultural history Tricity offers beautiful beaches that are croweded in summer by foreginers as well as Polish tourists. As there are a few universities a lot of young Polish people are attracted by the city and start their studies here. That is why Tricity offers a lively nightlife. Besides, it has plenty of cultural activities (theatres, concerts and an opera), about 10 cinemas can be found and pubs, clubs and discos for every taste.

The two centres are situated in the districts of Gdynia, where high percentige of unemployment, poverty, alcoholizm and drug addictions can be found. The districts are 15 min by bus from the Gdynia centre and are attractive because of its geografical situation and history remainings.

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

Volunteers working in "Mrowisko" will learn creative ways of spending free time. They will be creators and realizators of own projects for our target group as well as for local society. For us EVS is an opportunity to find out more about ourselves and also opportunity to share with own interests and passions. It is also a great chance to learn to cooperation with others. We work according to philosophy "While helping others, you can also discover yourself".

The example of tasks for the volunteers are:
- Help with children's homeworks.
- Help in running group or individual activities for children and youth
- Running own workshop of interest, ex. dance, theatre, fine-arts, sport or anything what the volunteer is interested in.
- Help in organizing events for children and youth.
- Help in searching for donors of the centre.
- Help the personnel when it's need.
- Clean rooms after activities together with children

Volunteer should be ready for feedback information and for talking about difficulties in work (inside the organisation).

Volunteers work is divided into 3 stages:

1 stage -observer -volunteer's task is mainly to watch the work, getting to know the custums and rules of the place, getting to know all the employees, volunteers and the charges, organization's structure, take part in socializing activities and events organized by the centre;

2 stage -co-organizer -volunteer as a help to the professionals will assist with different activities for children, however volunteer can initiate his own activities in a framework of already existing workshops;

3 stage -organizer -volunteer organize his/her own workshops/activities for children or youth with a content-related and material support of the staff

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

A volunteer should be aquinted with the kind of work is done in our centre -we need 'tough guys' loving 'naughty kids'. S/he should be communicative and open for new experiences, creative and inventive. S/he should have satisfaction from her/his participation, have own interests and be ready to share with them, when working with children and youth.

It is welcome if the volunteer has basic English and/or Russian language skills and is willing to study Polish, which would help a lot in the daily live of a volunteer.
Both male and female volunteers are wanted

Interested volunteers should enter the web page of the contact point organization (www.cwm.org.pl), where they can find actual information about vacant places and the application form to download. The volunteers are matched with the project according to the information in the application.