A. Project environment: profile of the organisation and local community
As stated above, Greenpeace CEE has active offices in Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Poland plus the headquarters in Vienna. Focus in Vienna is on the one hand on Austrian campaign work, on the other hand on the coordination of the other offices' activities. Based in the headquarters office, the volunteers are placed in the centre of the beehive, with the opportunity to interact with around 100 staff members and several hundred volunteers from 5 different countries, with the respective different languages and cultural backgrounds.
Vienna is the Capital of Austria and has 1,8 million inhabitants. Located in the centre of the new Europe and heavily influenced by it's history as the capital of the Austrian Hungarian Empire, it builds a bridge between east and west. Many historical buildings offer loads of sight seeing opportunities, but fortunately Vienna is also influenced by modern times: it has a lively night life, many opportunities to practice sport and a large cultural programme.

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers
As an internationally acting organisation with a strong focus on awareness raising, Greenpeace offers ample opportunities for the curious mind: the various campaign contents, ranging from scientific details to general political information, the ongoing management of our projects, the ways of communication and last but not least, the different cultures and languages within our region.
We envision three volunteer placements in the Greenpeace CEE office. Possible placements would be the departments described below. According to the relevant actions at the time of the EVS, two volunteers can be active at the same time in one department. This goes especially for the action and issue department. And as the Greenpeace CEE office is much bigger and has more departments, the volunteer could also join another department, like e.g. networking. In this case we would carefully select the tasks for the volunteer according to what his/her interest is. In all departments, the regular working hours are Monday to Friday from 9 until 5 p.m. The volunteer works for about 30 hours within these opening hours. In all departments, the idea is that the volunteers get the opportunity to learn the typical skills of this department.

Actionnet Department:
The action department is responsible for the practical preparation and implementation of the famous Greenpeace actions. As the volunteers are not to be used as paid demonstrators, the work of the volunteers concentrates on the preparation of these actions. A big part of the work is creative: developing action material and producing it, this means to develop a concept together with the staff and to put this into action, by painting, drawing, sewing the materials used in the actions. The preparation and support for Action training is another part of the work: the new volunteer actionists get the skills to demonstrate according the Greenpeace method. In the periods with fewer actions to prepare, the volunteer will help the office staff.

Issue Department:
The issue department develops campaigns that will be implemented in all of the countries Greenpeace CEE is working in. In this department the volunteer contributes valuable information on the situation in the new countries and in Austria, in order to give the campaign a fundamental basis.
The issue department is responsible for the conceptualisation and research of campaigns. These campaigns are oriented towards Central and Eastern Europe and therefore many of the research work should be done in this geographical area as well. The volunteer will spend his/her time doing research and working on the concepts together with the main responsible for the specific campaign. The rest of the time will be filled with general office support.

Media Department:
In the media department, the volunteer plays an important role in the communication of the Greenpeace goals to young people, in Austria and in the new countries. His/her input is expected in the presswork concentrated on the eastern European countries.
In the media department, the volunteer will be mainly doing research, which is the basis of the press communications. A second important task is the keeping of the photo and press archives: finding suitable photos for press releases or integrate new material. The rest of the time, will be the support at press conferences and other events and general administration.

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process
Volunteers for an organisation like Greenpeace should in the first place be able to identify themselves with the aims of peace and environmental protection. This requires open-mindedness, the willingness to think things through and to act according to one's principles. As Greenpeace acts internationally, knowledge of English would be appreciated in addition to the volunteers' mother tongue.
We intend to have the recruitment process as open as possible. The applicants will be first judged according to their application, later in a personal talk. Each applicant will be personally informed about our final decision, whether it is a positive or a negative one for him/her. The major criterion the decision will be based on will be the volunteers' interest in Greenpeace and our activities. As sending organisation, we would of course prefer to cooperate with an organisation with similar aims and activities.

D. Special needs (if applicable)
The volunteers would have 2 permanent contact persons, plus the people in his/her department as additional support. None of us are trained to support people who are disabled or suffer from health problems; in addition our office is not accessible for wheelchairs. We have experience with people from different countries, cultures and different social and economic background.

E. Risk prevention, safety and protection
The volunteers learn on their first day in the office about the risks and dangers an office environment might enclose. We will offer regular feedback talks as a means of additional support. Both permanent contact persons are learned apprentice trainers and thus possess the knowledge about children's legal situation, the necessary safety measures and the special requirements of adolescents.