PROJECT ENVIRONMENT

Marcinkonys is a village in Varena village situated on the river Gruda. The village has 800 residents, most of them are elderly people. Numbers of youth and young families are small, but hey are all very actively involved in the life of local community, cherish ancient crafts, teach others and engage in eco tourism. Marcinkonys 100 km from Vilnius, and has bus and train connections to the capital. It is 135 km from Kaunas, but the connection with this city is problematic. The nearest town of Varena and Druskininkai are 20 and 30 km away respectively.

Marcinkonys is the centre of the elderate, it has a train station, wooden church of St.Apostles Simon and Tadas (built in 1880), elementary school, clinic, three shops, a post office, reacreation and entertainment centre. The village has an ethnographic ensemble which is active more than 30 years already.
Directorate of Dzukija National park, the visitors' centre, ethnographical museum, directorate of Cepkeliai state reservation are based in Marcinkonys too. During the summer season Marcinkonys is visited my many tourists from Lithuania and abroad. There are many palces of interest in the vicinity, many cultural events take place.

Volunteers will live in the park's guest house with all the necessary amenities and the kitchen. The accommodation is in the building of the directorate in Marcinkonys. Volunteers will work as part of the professional team of the park and they will have all the opportunities for formal and non-formal learning, will feel the importance of team work. Most of the staff speaks English. All the working equipment will be provided (computers, binoculars etc.). Bicycles will be available too. Volunteer will be able to actively participate in the life of the local community, learn traditions of the region, crafts and lifestyles, participate in the activates of the ethnographical ensemble.

ACTIVITIES

Dzukija National park is a very special protected area of the country due to it's peculiar natural conditions and well preserved ethno cultural heritage. People used to farm here just for personal needs and lived mostly from natural forest resources. Such living conditions created the unity between man and nature. Volunteers will have a perfect opportunity to feel the uniqueness of this region, to see the wooden architecture of villages, learn traditional crafts, traditional lifestyles of Dzukija region, taste the learn how to prepare local traditional meals.

With the help of Park's specialists volunteers will be able to learn to work in many different fields. Together with cultural heritage specialists volunteers will conduct the registration of objects of cultural heritage, help with the early documentation of wooden architecture in photos. Together with nature specialists volunteers will implement the cartography of protected species, monitoring of landscape, camping grounds, database maintenance. They will also help prepare expositions for the ethnographical museum and visitors' centres, special event, festivals. Volunteers will help keep the tourist paths and infrastructure in order, conduct tourist flow monitoring; participate in nature management actions in Natura 2000 teritories, collect garbage in the most visited areas of the park.

Schools of environmental education, camps, hikes, various actions are organized in the park, so volunteers will be able to share experience or gain more while actively participating and working together with the parks' staff and event participants. The park is also visited by many specialized tourist groups (ornithology, botany, ethno culture, history). They are guided by specialized guides. Participating in such excursions will give volunteers a lot of new scientific information, they will be able to meet scientists, students and nature enthusiasts. During the summer season many events are organized together with the local community, so volunteers will have perfect opportunities express and realize their initiatives, ideas, communicate to the local people, learn language, songs, dances, and local traditions.

The park is publishing its own newspaper. Volunteers will be given the opportunity to publish their experience and feeling living and work in the region. The website of the park and Marcinkonys community will find place to publish news on volunteers' work and life. This will raise awareness of volunteering and EVS among the local youth.

Seasonal occupation:

May - June
On the arrival volunteers will be introduced with personal and corporate safety regulations. They will also get to know their living and working environments. Most of the work during this time will be rated to preparation for the tourist season - path and sign renovation, management, exposition renovation in visitors' centers and ethnographical museum. During these months volunteers will have all the theoretical preparation and will be able to combine new knowledge with practice. Knowing that it's a period of adaptation in a new environment, volunteers should be prepared for additional challenges.

July - August
Volunteers will be well acquainted with the park, will have had theory and practice, and thus will be able to work independently. Most of the tasks will be related to park's visitors, tour guiding, research on tourism, monitoring. As most of the work is planned outdoors, a lot will depend on weather conditions. During bad weather work will be concentrated indoors.

September - October - November
Various tasks with nature, culture and landscape management specialists are foreseen. By this time volunteers will have a lot of knowledge, information and practical skills about the park's protected areas, their importance in nature and local community. They will be able to work independently, communicate with the local youth, and organize presentations in schools on volunteering, environmental protection and their culture. As less work during this time is planned in nature, volunteers will have more time to know the local ethno cultural heritage.

PROFILE OF VOLUNTEERS

Dzukija national park would like to host volunteers with the following characteristics/interests:
- ability to live in a small community and rural area
- basic English or Russian skills
- creativity, ability to work in a team, sense of initiative, communicativeness
- interest in nature preservation and research
- interest in ethno culture, traditional crafts and customs
- readiness for challenges living in a country side
- independence at work, activeness.

Dzukija National park is waiting for active, self confident able to work independently young people at the same time willing to actively participate in the life of local community. This will be a challenge for volunteers. Most of local people don't speak English, so misunderstandings are expected. Therefore volunteers should be patient and tolerant.
Candidates will be evaluated based on how well they suit general criteria of EVS and the profile outlined above. Primary selection will be carried out by the sending organizations. Final decision will be made by the host organization in cooperation with the coordinating organization.

If you would like to participate in the candidate selection, please do the following:

1. Fill in the candidate application form (we can send it to you by email) or CV and motivation letter
2. If you are interested in more than one hosting place, please arrange your choices by order of preference
3. Please provide us with EI reference number of your sending organization

Candidate selection will be carried out by the host organizations. The results should be clear in the middle of January. The final answer from the national agency should be given by the 15th of March.