A. The town of Freiburg is situated in southwestern Germany, in the border triangle between France and Switzerland, about 60 km from Basel and 75 km from Strasbourg. The town has al-together about 220.000 inhabitants.
The Albert-Ludwigs- University, founded in 1457 is one of the oldest and most famous universi-ties of Germany where 20.000 students are registered. The university and its hospital is one of the most important employers of the whole region.
The town of Freiburg is an economical center in the Upper Rhine region where the service sec-tor and public services are dominant. Furthermore tourism plays an important role. The Old City with the cathedral as the town's landmark is the destination of 3 million visitors every year. The town is well-known as the gateway to the Black Forest.
Freiburg is a hub on the Rhine Valley Line which connects Basel with the economic centers of Karlsruhe and Mannheim. The town and its nearer surroundings are connected by 4 tramways and 21 buslines. A well developed bus network connects Freiburg with touristic destinations of the Black Forest and the neighbouring alsatian region in France.
To ensure regional mobility European Volunteers get a monthly ticket for all means of public transportation in the administrative district of Breisgau-Hochschwarzwald; on workdays from 14 h, on weekends and during school holidays the ticket is also valid in the neighbouring counties of Ortenau, Schwarzwald-Baar, Lörrach and Waldshut-Tiengen.


B. Englisch: Learning opportunities:
Volunteers could experience themselves as a part of a team, where all members are working on an equal footing on the same task.
During their activities volunteers will learn about social and emotional necessities of children, families and elderly people.
Volunteers will gain competences in social care for children and accompanying elderly people.
The cooperation in a social project will afford volunteers a vocational orientation and a perspec-tive for the professional life.
Having sole responsibility for design and realisation of leisure facilities will enhance self-assurance and self-confidence of volunteers.
Participation in internal professional development activities will provide volunteers with special-ised knowledge of the care of children and basic knowledge in care for the elderly.
Volunteers will be coerced to communicate in german language to gain self-confidence in habit-ual language use daily, which will be strengthened and corrected by aedequate language train-ing.
Integration in a foreign culture and the self-determined life of the local community will afford vol-unteers a personal orientation and increase the development of future perspectives.
Volunteering activities:
Volunteers will be offered - in accordance to their personal predilections and capabilities - the following operational fields and tasks:
" Child care and homework support in the kindergarden and after-school-care-center;
" Collaboration in the theatre project "Spielwiese"
" Assistance and support in organisation and implementation of the holiday program "Children's Campus";
" Assistance and support in organisation and implementation of multigenerational programs for children and elderly people.
Major tasks of volunteers will be assistance and support of staff members in child care and youth work, promotion and stimulation for activities, escort of walks and hiking tours, organisa-tion of games etc.
Like all staff members volunteers are expected to carry out some work of routine like: preparing of group rooms for work, clearance and cursory cleaning at the end of work; in the field of leisure time activities: support in organisation and realisation of all kinds of activities; service and main-tenance of materials and equipments; preparing of snacks; help children to change their clothes and assitance in toilet training
Some more activities will be offered in the multigenerational project: organizing collective activi-ties with elderly people and children.
European Volunteers are expected to keep the rules of our work with young people:
" acceptance of young people in their particular personality
" ability to cope with strain by challenging behaviour
" full cooperation with staff members
" loyal and responsible acting according to the particular objective of our work
" to be courageous to act creative and flexible
Emphatically volunteers are invited to bring in their own ideas. Staff members will appreciate all initiatives to develop additional proposals for youth work activities and will support planning and realization. Volunteers could develop their ideas for new games, activities or stories into a per-sonal project if they so wished - creative ideas are always welcome.
Volunteers are invited to participate in internal vocational training seminars.
The assignment of European Volunteers will not substitute a regular job in this project. The activities of volunteers should expand and deepen the existent child care facilities. Volunteers should enrich the care activities with new ideas and perspectives.

C. The volunteer should have an interest in child care and in assitance to the elderly and should be open to interact with young people with challenging behaviour who are threatended with social exclusion. Previous knowledge of work with children and young people as well as elderly peole could be helpful.
It's necessary for the volunteers to be sociable and outgoing, to have enthusiasm, and to be tol-erant to foreign cultures. Volunteers should be able to act on their own initiative, but also coop-erate in a team.
Volunteers should have a basic knowledge of German and the willingness to learn german lan-guage.
A driving license class B would be helpful.
Candidates should describe their motivation for a voluntary service in this project in a detailed motivation letter. Important are neither national or social background, gender, language skills nor level of education, but a convincingly motivation

D. Volunteers with special needs could be accepted after consultation with the hosting organisation to find and to agree appropriate opportunities of voluntary activities

E. The host organization provides continuous monitoring, including easy access to the contact per-son (Tutor), regular dialog with the volunteers, in which the options for personal development and the interests of the volunteer are being discussed.
To prevent crises from occurring in the first place, volunteers will be given any training neces-sary for them to carry out their tasks.
Volunteers will be informed about their rights, regulations in the host organization, conse-quences of unacceptable behaviour.
In terms of risk and crisis prevention it is very important to keep all persons involved in the pro-ject informed to be able to act immediately in the case of a crisis.
However if problems occur, volunteers have different people to contact and discuss problems with. The different people are pro-active in seeking area of concern and actively finding solutions to the issues arising.
The line manager in the respective working group is on hand daily for problems, the director of the hosting organisation is accessible for volunteers every day and the co-ordinator is available by e-mail and phone at every time but meets the volunteers weekly or biweekly during language training.
Weekly during language training volunteers can meet participants from other EVS-projects from the region to exchange experiences.
Volunteers wil have the opportunity to stay in contact with their family and sending organization via e-mail or telephone at least on a weekly basis.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=6001581701