Project environment:

The hosting project will be running in two centres of Silesian Diacony which are situated in one building. :
Domovinka Siloe - a daily care centre is providing assistance to seniors suffering from Alzheimer decease and aphrenia. The capacity of the centre is 8-10 clients. All of them are mobile. The objective of the rendered services is to provide them appropriate care, therapy and to activate senior citizens with disability, so they could cope with the impacts of their illness in a better way, to enable staying of a person with disability in the home environment, and to put off their long-term stay in a medical facility, to relieve stress which the family members are exposed to, and last but not least to provide consultancy and support of the family members.

The Centre Domovinka offers the transport of their clients from their houses to the Centre in the mornings and also they bring them back to their houses in the afternoons.
The activities with the elderly people include exercises such as memory exercises, craft activities, social games, sport activities like gymnastic, common singing, cooking, walking, gardening, doing trips and taking part in the social events.
Their clients can use the services of the haircut and pedicure. The pastoral care of the clients is an important part of the support the clients provided by the pastor.
The Centre provides also social counselling to family relatives of the clients.
The Centre cooperates with the care centre Elim, emergency centre for elderly people in their family environment Dorkas. The centre has very close cooperation with hospitals and the local authority.

Mother's Centre Rodinka - is aimed on social exclusion prevention of parents in their maternity leave. Mother's Centre provides mothers with small kids to go out from their isolation, to enable them a contact with community, to promote education and help them to prepare themselves for future occupation. The Centre offers kids to be in contact with other kids and helps them to develop their personality through various kinds of activities. The programme contains singing songs, reading biblical stories, art activities, pre-school education. There are very popular extraordinary events that are realized within a whole year (e.g. family trips, sport afternoons, educational stays in the nature).

Mother's Centre is a place where parents with kids of age up to 6 years can come to talk about their daily life problems, ideas and matters to be involved in social life and be in contact with public.
Besides Mother's Centre also provides holding tourist-sport activities for school kids (6-13 years) and English lessons for the kids.

Local community
Domovinka Siloe, Daily service centre for the elderly people and Mother's Centre are Project are situated in city Ostrava which is the regional capital of Moravian-Silesian region (North-eastern part of Czech Rep.) third biggest city in Czech Republic. Ostrava has over 300 thousand inhabitants. Domovinka Siloe It is located in suburb Ostrava - Nova Ves close to the centre.

The Ostrava region is a very important industrial centre and plays very important role in the iron production and mine industry at present and in the past.
The city lays on two bigger rives. Not far from the city, the surrounding of the river Ostravice and Odra was recorded to the nature heritage "Poodri" with many ponds and kinds of plants and animals.
The city offers the possibilities for several cultural events: theatre performances, Multi-purpose centre Arena - sports, films in the several cinema halls of the new opened shopping centre Futurum Cinestar.
The reconstructed Silesian castle provides also the possibilities for the several cultural events. In Ostrava-Poruba is the biggest nature swimming pool in Europe.
There is a well-developed public transport of buses, trams and trolley - buses. There are also 5 train main stations and International airport Ostrava - Mosnov is far away 25 km from the city centre. The airport is the biggest regional airport in Czech republic.


Proposed activities for EVS volunteers:

Due to the vision of Silesian Diacony that is aiming at supporting and empowering of those who are in need, the project wants to enable to young person to get to know the lifestyle of elderly people, activities for mothers with their kids and system of social services provided in Czech Republic.
The project should also contribute to the overcoming of intolerance and lack of respect towards elderly people. The gained experiences, competences through learning by doing may have a great impact on volunteer´s academic or career orientation and it creates and it anticipates more successful integration in the future working place because of knowing and experiencing some organizational culture.
During the learning process, volunteer will have possibilities to hard skills (Czech language, PC skills,...) as well as soft skills (communication, empathy, intercultural self-awareness), to learn through the internal reflection or individual training courses during service and by exchanging her/his experiences with staff members.
During her/his leisure time activities s/he can participate in different national music and folk national events, taste special Moravia, Czech, Polish foods in Ostrava and in its surrounding. Because of the geographical location of Ostrava, s/he has an opportunity to visit the some Polish and Slovak regions and to learn about historical coherence.
The volunteer will be considered as a partner in team of the Centre. Upon arriving the volunteer will get insight in the activities of the centres and get meet the clients, the staff members, the national volunteers and will get time to settle in. The first two weeks are considered as an introduction period and volunteer will act mostly as an observer. Gradually, the volunteer will learn about the abilities and skills of the clients and all services and activities provided by the centre and will be led to a higher self-reliance. The building of relationships with the clients is very important.S/he will be given a space to contribute with own ideas for social activities.
The hosting organisation gives a special support to volunteer through the supervisor, a person who will accompany her/him in the hosting placement. Supervisor will continually support volunteer during the project and encourage her/him by developing of own project in which s/he can discover social skills such as communication, teamwork, cooperation.
The mentor of volunteer will help him/her to settle in and socialize, to build partnership and participate in activities in local community. Volunteer to improve language skills. The Czech language skills of the volunteers are also improved by the private lessons.

The followed activities will be run by the volunteer:

1. Daily Care Centre for seniors (60%):
- Volunteer will accompany clients by several social activities (reminiscence therapy, memory training, singing songs, listening to music, dance, arts using various techniques and materials, cooking, ironing)
- Participation in trips and events together with clients and social workers (exhibitions, walking, museums, sweetshops, shopping, ZOO,…)
- Participation in creating of programme for clients (together with workers and clients)
- Helping workers with small caring operations (during serving foods, bathing,…)

2. Activities with kids in Mother's Centre (40%):
- Volunteer will help with organizing leisure-time activities for kids in clubs of Centre (organizing trips, competitions, active games in a gym, art works)
- Helping with organizing extraordinary events and particular club activities: sport, motional, music, dramatical and art activities
- Assisting in preparing a tea for kids, teaching personal hygiene habits, keeping an order and cleanness

The volunteer will participate in all routine daily activities except of those which require special social and psychological training. The volunteer will work independently but with support and observation from the staff, especially intially due to inexperience and language barriers. The volunteer will be a valuable extra resource for the centres´ activities and will not be intended to replace existing staff or fulfil staff's current duties.

Time schedule:
The schedule of activities might look like the following:

Monday: volunteer will accompany workers in social activities with seniors (limbering-up, reading Bible, memory therapy, ergotherapy,…) + Rodinka: helping with English lessons for kids and mothers
Tuesday: 09.00 - Rodinka: helping with leisure-time activities for kids + activities with seniours in
Siloe
Wednesday: 8.00 - Siloe: activities with seniors + helping with English lessons for kids and mothers
in Rodinka
Thursday: 09:00 - Rodinka: helping with leisure-time activities for kids + activities with seniours in
Siloe
Friday: 08:00 - Siloe: activities with seniors + : helping with leisure-time activities for kids in Rodinka.
This schedule is need to be taken only as orintational and may be changed according to needs or placement.
The working time will be in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon according to the activities.
Total: 6 hours a day

During the second half of the project Centre offers the volunteer the opportunity to realize her/his own project according to her/his own initiation and ideas (e.g. organizing sport activities for kids - sport tournaments, local trips to nature; organizing support activities for the elderly people - ergo therapy, drawing, handicrafts, dancing therapy, music therapy, rehabilitation exercises).
The size of the own project will depend on the volunteer. The criteria of the project includes: 1. Own idea, 2. Idea discussed with the staff, 3. The children, seniors and the local community are the actors, not only receivers, 4. Volunteers are participating in learning process. Staff of the host organisation advise volunteers as needed.
There also will be an opportunity to visit of the other projects provided by Silesian Diacony in the region to gain an overall view of the organisation and the standard of care.



Volunteer profiles and recruitment process:

The volunteers come from different countries, social background, and church denomination, but share a desire to serve and grow. The volunteers need to be willing to integrate into the Domovinka´s and Rodinka´s life, having a high interest and motivation to work with kids and seniors. Volunteers should be able to work in team, to accept the special needs of seniors, as well as offer their own ideas and experiences, has sufficient amount of patience, flexibility and creativity. Very important is a willingness to learn Czech language to overcome a language barrier in communication with seniors especially. It would be beneficial if volunteers can play any music instrument or sing, have creative or art skills. Other important qualities include: openness and good communication skills.
Candidates are asked to send an application form, motivation letter, curriculum vitae, and 3 reference letters prepared by a person who knows the potential candidate through both formal and informal activities.



Special needs (if applicable):

No.



Risk prevention, protection and safety:


Upon arrival volunteer will be picked up by the mentor or supervisor; who will provide her/him with a support for the whole hosting time.
The volunteer will attend an on-arrival seminar, where the project will be introduced and s/he will be able to meet the project coordinator. The volunteer will also receive an intensive language course (56 hours) and will continue to recieve 2 hours a week throughout her/his service.
The volunteer's mentor will show the volunteer her/his new home and will assist her/him to cope with changes. He will also give her/him the important information about the community and the area. The supervisor will introduce the new working place to the volunteer and he will explain to her/him details about the work.
Before starting any activity the supervisor will also inform the volunteer about the level of risk of each of activity. Every month the volunteer and the supervisor will have a supervision session, where they will talk about the work, improvement and training as well as personal problems, which they cannot discuss in working area.
The project coordinator will be consistently in touch with the supervisor, mentor and the volunteer (attendance at meetings, written or phone contact), where he will observe and evaluate volunteer's attitude in any critical situations in the working place or outside the work. If project coordinator will contact straightaway his/her mentor or supervisor and they will resolve it. If the problem cannot be resolved the project coordinator will operate according to directions of Silesian Diacony.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=26000212001