Project environment

Barntrup is a small town with about 10.000 citizens in the administrative district Detmold. Bielefeld is 50 km away. From the centre of Barntrup, the Pestalozzi Street leads the visitor through fields and meadows, directly into the heart of the small community. Skater places at the village square and basketball hoops, table tennis plates out the large court yard, where one can hear the babble of playing children's' voices, during good weather.
Around the place 15 roomy houses of the children's village families and groups living together, but also play and football-areas, the great economic garden and various bawns for sheep, goats and chicken….-and the villages' companionship-house: This is the domicile of the village management, pedagogic and psychological advisory and administration. But also the central kitchen, the grand hall, the rooms of the primary school and the apartments of young adults have their place in the friendly building.

The volunteers experience the young people in the framework of stationary youth work, accompany them in everyday life and undertake activities with them. They are integrated into the domestic life of a family or groups. Apart from parties and celebrations the everyday life with washing, cooking, cleaning, having meals together, homework assistance as well as games and fun in free time also belongs to the working day. This enables a constant exchange, which explains our goals and views to the volunteer.
The volunteers have the possibility, to work project-related. Together with the youth, projects about the home culture as well as cooking courses will take place. They will be involved in projects like: Copacabana, supraregional football tournaments, skater contests, summer festival, project week etc. Also own hobbies can be brought into the project, e.g. a volunteer led a table tennis working group. The ideas and desires of the volunteer are taken up and can be initiated. To get in, an accompanying work on a project is suitable. Together with a pedagogue activities are carried out and accompanied. Ideally the project then runs into the hands of the volunteer, who then only experiences a loose binding to the head.
The volunteer become acquainted with the language and our culture. Through guidance by the educational collaboration the bases of educational and social work can be passed on and educational action can be learned. Beyond that, the work conveys personal competences such as team ability and the ability to deal with conflicts. Self initiative and project-related work can be developed.
We wish to host open and cheerful youth, who can reach to other people unknown to them. They should be able to adapt according to the situation and be spontaneous. Also they should be able to name their wishes and needs. It would be nice if the volunteers brought along their own hobbies and ideas, which can then be tried out and used in our project.

The staff in the groups a pedagogical educated persons and used to deal with people form disadvantaged backgrounds, therefore it will be no problem for them to support a volunteer from disadvantaged background. This support is limited in a way that the volunteer can not become one child more in the institution but he should have the capability to support the disadvantaged children in the institution in a positive way.
The volunteer will be living in a separate apartment. Under these circumstances supervision cannot be guaranteed, that's why volunteers under 18 years will not be taken on. The volunteer will regularly be in touch with the person to turn to of the project. He/she is both the person, who guides and instructs the volunteer and the person to turn to for everyday problems. In case the relationship between the volunteer and his/her supervisor develops in the direction that no trusting contact is possible, there is still the responsible person of the hosting organisation as another possible person to turn to. This person stands outside the work of the project. He/she will already be in contact before the departure of the volunteer and will lead through a meeting with a group of volunteers at the beginning of the voluntary service. The meeting takes a few days. Approximately every two months there will be a personal talk with the person of the hosting organisation. With this personal meeting, he/she is able to guarantee that the volunteer is fine and that the volunteer could develop a trusting relationship to the people in his/her project. Just shortly after the middle of the voluntary service, the hosting organisation visits the project to ensure that the general conditions of the EVS and the "Activity Agreement" are being realized in the project. In case that there is a serious problem, the hosting organisation will try to intervene and visit the project again. There is regular exchange both between the volunteer and the hosting organisation and between the project and the hosting organisation.

Motivation and EVS experience

The Westfälisches Kinderdorf "Lipperland"is a children's village where children and youth from different countries live.
The children and youth in our organization experienced childhoods, which lead to a slow development of personality. For these young people it is a challenge to go new pathways and it is something difficult to cope with. We want to bring together young European volunteers that leave their home country, get to know a new culture, a new language and a new life like the young people in the village do. Our youth can be teachers and become students, like the volunteers and vice versa.
Since 1999 the Welstfälisches Kniderdorf host EVS volunteers regulary. Mostly there are two volunteers who are living together in one appartment but who are working in different groups of the childrenvillage.

Description of the organisation

For more than 40 years the Westfälische Kinderdorf e.V. supports disadvantaged children, youths and young adults that are not able or not allowed to stay at their parents' for different reasons. Today the association in Westfalen-Lippe and the close-by Niedersachsen gives more than 300 young people a new home. As a very confessional children's village work, the Westfälische Kin-derdorf e.V. is a member in the Deutscher Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband (DPWV) and a state-approved free porter of youth's aid.

According to our motto "For each child, for each youth, the right aid" meanwhile in the children's villages "Lipperland", "Niedersachsen, dem spielRAUM" in Paderborn and other pedagogic offers in the region, a great spectrum of different facilities is available.

Over 12.000 members and promoters support the build-up and design of the charitable and non-profit children's village work with contributions, donations, donation of food, clothes and grand benefits.

Founded in 1966 as the first children's village in Nordrhein-Westfalen, the Westfälische Kinderdorf Lippland" is being domiciled for more than 3 decades in the town Barntrup

At present in the children's village "Lipperland", more than 180 children and youth have found a new home, the majority of them live with children's village - families that have professional foster parents and live together with their own foster children, who are up to 6. Others live in groups for children and youths, in the house for young adults, in the mother-child-house and in the house which is social-pedagogically looked after.The locations of care reach from the children's village in Barntrup up to almost the whole of Lippe. What all have in common: They offer children and youth a home, care, education and encouragement for a short or long period of time.

Day groups in Dörentrup and Lüdge enable care and assistance of children before and after school, their parents are being supported in their education. In the "Zauberkiste" (engl. magic box) day-facility for children at the age of 3-6, 22 non-disabled and 3 disabled children have a place in single integration. The pedagogic afternoon table and the primary school complete the offers of the day care reasonably. The ambulant educational aid advises and helps children, youth and their families on location, preventive or in the time of crises.

In the "Office for kids" and with the "Fatmobil"- a mobile office and a free time centre-the childrens' village children and youths, as well as those from the town and its surroundings, find opportunities to establish contact, to interchange, advice and help. They can get ideas for free time activities and their own support.
Hereby the youth aid institution reinforces integration of young inhabitants into their surrounding and opens itself to the region and community.