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

The Town Council has the following areas: Secretary, Intervention, Treasury, Public Funds and Promotion, Hiring, Services and Maintenance, Human Resources and Quality, Socio-cultural and Urbanism.
Within this structure we will focus on the Social Welfare Area, in particular in the Youth and Cooperation section where we are expecting the European Volunteers to join the following departments:
1. Social services, Women, Third age, Immigration.
2. Education
3. Youth
4. Cooperation
Each volunteer will join a program or a service from one of these departments, so this young person will contribute a European dimension but he/she are not essential in the running of the service/programme.
LOCAL COMMUNITY
Elche, located in the South of the Valencian Community (Spain), is the capital of the region of Baix Vinalopó. It has a population of over 200,000 inhabitants. Surface: 326 Km2 (city centre and rural communities in the "Campo de Elche"), with important cities. Its 9 kms. of beaches, in excellent state of conservation, extend behind large dunes covered with pines.
The UNESCO has declared heritage of the humanity two sites in Elche: the Palmeral de Elche and the Misteri D'Elx.
For more information visit the web page: www.elche.es
Elche has two official languages: Castilian and Valencian.
The volunteer will not live in the same place as the beneficiaries of the project.
The volunteer will share a flat with other young people.


B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

WHAT WE OFFER VOLUNTEERS:
- Hosting volunteer protocol: We have designed a document with the steps and phases to follow for a satisfactory development of the project. This document specifies all the figures that take part: mentor, task instructor, collaborators, etc.); as well as the different phases of the project: volunteer selection, tasks, follow up and evaluation, integration to the city, getting to know the environment, etc. (See attached document)
" Linguistic training: through an agreement established with the University Miguel Hernandez, the volunteer will attend classes of Spanish language (according to his/her level) together with other Erasmus students of the university. There is a certificate at the end of the course.
" Intensive Linguistic training: for volunteers with no previous knowledge of Spanish, we offer intensive Spanish classes for the first 20 days.
" Specific training: they attend a training course to carry out the programme and project tasks.
" Basic volunteering training: they attend a basic course about volunteering together with the group of local volunteers of the city given by professionals.
" Computer training: they attend computer classes given by the city council to its employees to know and improve the use of the package Office XP.
" Cooking training: Spanish basic cooking classes. In these classes they are taught how to cook Spanish omelette, salads, paellas and even fideua.
" Support: The European Volunteers are accompanied during their two first months of stay in the projects by local volunteers in their free time so they know the places to go out. We consider this very important for the integration of the volunteer in the active city life as any other citizen..
" Telephone: opportunity of calling home once a week from the City council
" Material: needed working for their tasks (notebooks, CR, diskettes, etc.)
" New technologies: the volunteer has to his availability a computer with Windows XP, Office package and connection to Internet, so they can contact their friends at home. This small detail helps volunteers in their moments of melancholy.
" Mentorship: the mentor, Mar Navarro, has a lot of experience in the programme and with volunteering. She supports, is the mentor and accompanies to the Volunteers during the whole project. She knows English and French. The Volunteers can contact her whenever they need her.
" Working team: the European volunteer joins a working team of professionals and local volunteers. This allows him/her know and to develop team work and in his/her professional future.
" Letter of recommendation: we give a certificate and letter of recommendation explaining the learned aptitudes and the acquired experience.


ROLE OF THE VOLUNTEER:
Once the volunteer has joined one of the specific departments, we will draw p an activity project, which will be assessed after its execution, all of this through team work and promotion of youth participation.
The volunteer will join the project as an other member of the team, he/she can and must contribute ideas, he/she should also show initiative and get involved as much as it's possible for a European Volunteer. The volunteer is seen as a collaborator in the project and activities, he/she will have the only responsibilities a European volunteer can have, and wil always be supervised by a responsible member of the team.
The European volunteers will never replace any paid job.

REGULAR ACTIVITIES
We will centre in the Councils and areas where the European Volunteers would participate.
1. Youth: the City Council of Elche has been coming working for seven years for young people between 14 to 35 years. The work is focused in three areas: Advising, Leisure Programme and Youth Formation.
2. Education
We carry out, among other, the following activities:
work in primary public schools of the city,
Workshops fro minors,
Adult People Education Programme, Classes of Spanish language for foreigners in the Socio-cultural Centres, Classes of reading and writing. Courses of access to professional cycles of high degree (for people older than 20 who lack the needed degree to do high degree studies. Courses of access to professional cycles of intermediate degree
3. Social welfare: The Council of Social welfare offers services to help and support the citizens with their personal and social development. The volunteer will collaborate in the following tasks:
- Women Area: Support tasks of information, training and advice to women to cover their needs.
- Old people: Support activities, personalised care, accompanying disabled people or people who live alone, etc.
- Disabled: accompanying, help and support in carrying out daily activities. Collaborate in workshops and training activities for people with learning and physical disabilities. Day centres to develop activities and get professional care.
- Collaboration in the activities of the Social Centres: in each neighbourhood there is a Social centre, which is a reference point for the population. In these spaces there are many activities, for neighbours of all ages.
- Immigration: we organise activities so the immigrant associations can make their culture, traditions, history and way of life known in our city.
4. There are three main schemes of cooperation:

a. Awareness program: The main objective in to raise awareness among citizens in subjects like migrations, intercultural relations and cooperation, and on the other hand to develop different activities to raise awareness in the city throughout the year. The volunteer will collaborate with the technicians of the program.
b. Direct program Guinea Bissau: This is a program of direct intervention in Guinea Bissau in the fields of health, education and economy. The volunteer will collaborate in these activities.
c.Funding Program for development projects of ONGD's: We support projects of development cooperation from ONGDs with funding.

EXAMPLE OF THE TIMETABLE OF A VOLUNTEER IN THE YOUTH CENTRE FROM THE YOUTH AREA
DAY 1
9:00 h Breakfast
10:00 Coordination meeting with the working team: professionals and local volunteers (1h)
11:00 Work in the Youth Department.
Talks in a secondary school to publicise activities (2h)
13:00 Lunch
15:00 Spanish Lessons ( 1h 30 min)
18:00 Workshop at the Youth Centre with young people
21:30 End of work
22:00 Evening meal

DAY 2
9:00 h Breakfast
10:00 Meeting with mentor ( 1 h)
11:00 Work in the Youth department.
Updating the web page ( 2h)
13:00 Lunch
18:00 Work in the Youth Centre
21:30 End of work
22:00 Evening meal

DAY 3
9:00 h Breakfast
10:00 Work in the Youth Department. Talks in the Secondary School
13:00 Lunch
18:00 Work in the Youth Centre

DIA 4
9:00 h Breakfast
10:00 Work in the Youth department. Assisting users interested in EVS (search for projects, cv writing, etc.) (2h)
13:00 Lunch
15:00 Spanish Lessons ( 1h 30 min)
18:00 Work in the Youth Centre
21:30 End of work
22:00 Evening meal

DIA 5
9:00 h Breakfast
10:00 Work in the Youth department. Helping with the diffusion of the activities in the city ( 2h)
13:00 Lunch
18:00 Work in the Youth Centre
21:30 End of work
22:00 Evening meal

The volunteer's week will be of 32 hours and 30 minutes, of which no more than 10% will be administrative tasks. He/she will receive 3 to 4 hours of Spanish lessons during the week.
For more information visit: www.espaielx.com/europa/


C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

The criteria we will consider for the selection process are:
Someone:
-motivated for the project
-who likes to relate with youth and work with them
-who can work in a team
-who considers him/herself able of carrying out the mentioned tasks
-with initiative and motivation during the project
-with an open character
In the Council we have prepared a document where we establish the steps to follow not only for the selection of the volunteer but also to establish tasks in the arrival and welcoming of the volunteer, integration to the city and its environment, training for the tasks, language training, follow up and evaluation, as well as relationship with the mentor, and the task instructor. This document is called "Socialising process of the EVS". See annex.
In this document we describe the selection process. First we have a pre-selection based on their cvs and motivation letters. After this the task instructor selects three cvs, we call the three candidates and we have a small interview with them through a questioner and we then make the final selection.


D. Special needs (if applicable)

We do not think our organisation is properly prepared to host volunteers who need aid walking or certain special needs; in any case we are open too study the possibility once we know what the needs are.

E. Risk prevention, safety and protection
We have not planned to host underage volunteers due to the maturity required to carry pout the tasks we propose.
The Town Council of Elche provides the volunteers with the following aspects to cover unforeseen circumstances:
" AXA insurance provided by the European Commission, which covers anything from hospital expenses, accidents, doctors, etc.
" Civil responsibility insurance: The council has an insurance that covers any person who collaborates or Works as a volunteer int. the organisation.
" Accident insurance: The organisation will provide the young person with a Volunteer card, which will gain him/her access to sports facilities and coves them against any accident that might happen while in there.
" Mentor: is a person who orientates and supports the volunteer during his/her stay, so there is always somebody to consult or go to. The volunteer will meet once a week with the mentor and will have the opportunity to contact his/her mentor whenever necessary.
" Task instructor: This is the person in charge of teaching him/her the tasks. It's a different figure from the mentor .

" Socialising project of the volunteer: this is the document in which all the agents who take part in the project will rely in order to know how to act at each moment of the European volunteers stay.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=30000894305