A. Project environment: profile of the organisation and local community

Bucharest is the capital of Romania and it has aprox. 2 milions inhabitants. Located in a plane area of the south-eastern Romania, it is the cumulated center of economics, politics and culture.
Romania is a country with an intensily negative representation of the child protection through all the western Europe mass-media. Many aspects have been changed since 1989.Stil, there are stil many things to be done.
Sick children or those with challenging social situation are beeing supported by the state and by NGOs. Children from all parts of Romania are hospitalised inside the pediatric units in Bucharest. Their condition may be due both to birth or to neglactance inside their families living is remote geographic areas or facing critical socio-financial situations. No matter the cause, they lose their childhood inside hospitals where they usually spend very long periods of time. They become isolated, losing contact with their environment ,families .o even the chance of going to school.
Tuberculosis is stil very wide spread here and even thou it can be cured, it stil generates victimes due to lack of information and perseverance in following the correct treatment.
This is the picture of the main causes that generate the specific needs of the children targeted by our hosting programme.
On youngsters level, in Bucharest, volontary service is usually a very abstract notion which they do not adopt easily.
Many of them do not even know what the Civil Society is about. Through its programmes, A.C.T.O.R. helps them understand the real importance of volontary work, both for their own development and for the benefit of the community.
A.C.T.O.R. supports and assists the youngsters in their weekly activity on clinical animation inside the pediatric hospitals or in their fund raising campaigns for the events dedicated to the same target, the children with health problems.
The volonteers hosted by A.C.T.O.R. have the choice of living either in a students dormitory/ hostel or in an apartment shared by other EVS participants or by a family. Whatever their choice might be, they'll have their own room but a common kitchen, bathroom and livingroom. The ingredients for the food are to be bought and cooked by themselves.

B. Proposed activities for international volunteers

A.C.T.O.R. HAS A VERY ENTHUSIASTIC and dynamic volonteers team.
They are willing to meet youngsters belonging to other cultures and to get involved side by side with them in new projects. As part of this group, the EVS volonteers hosted by our organization can participate in the already established current activities(the pedagogical and the clinical animation programmes) or in occasional cultural events such as: festivals, movies-making or theatre projects, puppetry courses. There are also the above-mentioned fund raising campaigns.
THE FOUNDATION OF THE VOLONTARY WORK is represented by the creative involvement inside the clinic animation programmes. This means the specific animation programme created for the hospitalised children of the 2 pediatric units in Bucharest: THE PNEUMOFIZIOLOGY INSTITUTE MARIUS NASTA and THE ER CLINIC HOSPITAL GRIGORE ALEXANDRESCU. There is both an individual and a collectiv training perior inside the group for the assimilation of the skills reuired in this activity. All volonteers receive as 1st task to learn the tehnique of paper-folding, origami. It is a very important non-verbal communication tool used in our projects. Yet, youngsters are also much encouraged to use and further develop other artistic skills which they may already possess and which may prove very well-suited to the atmosphere of our partner-hospital units.
Another essential aspect of our project is the PROPOSAL and MATERIALIZATION of the one's own initiative project that can be anything, from the creation of a new show dedicated to the children, to making a movie, to writing a music album or organizing an innovative programme for pupils. The point of this task is for the individual to accept the responsibility of turning into reality a dream, a thought or developing a new project as an answer to our target's specific need.
By this activity, we expect to creatively learn new information regarding the native culture of the volonteer, the way is reaveals itself at the very frontier with the new world where the volonteer lives whike on EVS.
Beside these activities, the volonteers will benefit also from leisure time to travel alone or acompagned by their new friends from A.C.T.O.R. across representatives sites of Romania in order to deeply and tangibly understand the culture of the country which is hosting their EVS.
Apart from participating, side by side with the Romanian volonteers, to the weekly activities of the organization and all the other A.C.T.O.R events, the EVS participants will become the promotors of the Action itself and of the entire Youth Programme. Thus, they shall become the " ambassadors" of Europe during public meetings with youth from highschools and universities or oficial presentation of the organization.
They are to illustrate the very idea that while acting as volonteer, one becomes a fundamental gadget of the Civil Society, promoting real values such as freedoom, tolerance, mutual support etc.
The EVS volonteer will have 3+3=6 hour/week activities of clinic animation inside the 2 hospitals and will take part in the pedagogic programme with origami-theatre in kindergardens or schools, max. 12hours/week.
One will have to personally prepare for this activities, 6hour/week but also to work in team with the others volonteers to assimilate the technique of Forum theatre.
The rest of the time included in the EVS schedule, max.35hours/week will be quite flexible and it will change according to the local or international events in which A.C.T.O.R. gets involved, ex. Introducting the EVS in highschools and universities, festivals, shows etc.

C. Target group

An EVS volonteer willing to be part of A.C.T.O.R. hosting project should be very open-minded to challenges, full of initiative, able to adapt to a great variety of artistical and social animation activities, full of initiative etc.
Simultaneously, one must have the psychological and affective strenght of constructively working with sick children who wear the marks of very serious helth conditions (cancer, burning, sever physical handicap, HIV positive or tuberculosis). One needs to have good communication and diplomatic skills in order to stimulate the involvement of an increasing young participants inside the volontary activities of A.C.T.O.R. and the other programmes promoting European values.
Knowing English and French would facilitate the verbal communication.
A.C.T.O.R. is looking for youngsters interested in using different artistic tools in order to change the principles of the community surrounding them if they feel this need within themselves.

D. Special needs (if applicable)

An EVS participant is a great chance for the youg members to meet different people with the specific differences and issues of their own culture.
Considering our past experience, one may declare with satisfaction that all the young people coming from a background of social, economic or geographic difficulties have returned back home much more confident and creative.

The A.C.T.O.R. coordinator is trainned to offer advice and support with the sustain of professional young psychologists

E. Child safety and protection (if applicable)

Children involved in our programme of voluntary work need special attention according to the disease they are afflicted by or to their social, economical condition.
Discretion, sensitivity, diplomacy are mainly required and also the capacity of accepting responsibility in reporting the unusual kind of situation one might encounter or observe, not only from a medical point of view but also as behaviour.
Regarding the EVS action we would prefer to work with volonteersolder than 18 years old but we can prove to be flexible in this regard, too.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=62000130239