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

Hertha is situated next to the village Herskind, 16 kilometers west of Aarhus, the second largest city of Denmark. Herskind is a small but quite vivid community, there is a small grocery, a community house where cultural and social events are celebrated, a sports club, were they play soccer, handball and badminton and where the volunteer can join the activities.

Aarhus has 300.000 inhabitants and can offer practically everything within cultural areas, a world famous art museum, along with lots of other arts, cultural and historical museums, a historical village, several theatres and many cinemas, sports arenas, harbor and beaches, vivid city life, dancing places, large pedestrian areas etc. There are buses to Aarhus every hour on week days - in weekends there are 4 buses a day.

Rules and conditions
The volunteer should be non-smoker…. Smoking inside any building, even the volunteers own room, is strictly forbidden. Alcohol is mainly considered to be taken during weekends, and of course no one must be influenced by alcohol during working hours.

Volunteer must show up on time to the agreed activities.

The volunteer will be provided with his/her own room with a bed and a drawer. Bathroom is shared with 1 or 2 other volunteers. There is access to washing machine and internet according to agreement. The volunteer will be provided with special working clothes to wear during working hours when needed.
Breakfast and lunch will be taken together with the mentally handicapped. Dinner can also be taken with them or the volunteer can make their own meals in a small kitchen. We eat a lot of vegetables and most dinners are vegetarian, but we would have meat (veal, pork, chicken or fish) a couple of times a week. We are very conscious about serving healthy food. If the volunteer wants to make his/her own food, ingredients can be taken from the kitchen according to agreement with the responsible for the kitchen. The volunteer will not be expected to help making the food unless it is a specific wish of the volunteer, but everybody helps cleaning and washing the dishes afterwards.

The volunteers will attend a public language school and will most likely join classes 2 times a week for the first 3 months.

The project is coordinated by Dansk ICYE and Dansk ICYE will appoint a contact person to the volunteer (a co-worker of Dansk ICYE). S/he will be of assistance in case of questions or problems concerning the daily life in the project, host family or spare time. We will arrange min. 1 meeting between Dansk ICYE, Hertha and the volunteer to make sure that the aims and ideas of both volunteer and project are reached. The volunteer will attend on-arrival training organised by the National Agency as well as nationally organised mid-term meetings. Furthermore, s/he will be invited to all social events and seminars organised by Dansk ICYE for non-EVS volunteers from all over the world and host families.


B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

Learning opportunities:
The volunteer will learn how to work with different type of people. To work with mentally handicapped and stimulate their quality of life with the premises they have in life.

Since we have different workshops the volunteer can learn and qualify themselves within different practical and manual areas.

Danish culture and traditions - the language will be learned according to the effort of the volunteer. We provide Danish lessons once a week where the volunteer can attend.

About Rudolf Steiners pedagogy and view on the human being - the volunteer must ask to learn the theoretical background, because we don´t talk much about the principles. We live them!!

Supervision and instructions will be provided by pedagogues specialised in working with mentally handicapped.

The activities and role of EVS volunteers
The main activity for the volunteer will be to take part in the workshops according to interests and specific knowledge and experiences. We will need extra hands mainly in the bakery, dairy and biodynamic greenery but the other works shops will also be an option. The volunteer will work on 2-3 different workshops throughout the week and year according to the needs.The volunteer will not be the responsible for the workshops, but will play an important role in supporting and assisting the handicapped to perform the tasks they have. If the volunteer has a driving license, he/she will be in charge of being a chauffeur to different activities. If of interest, the volunteer can take part in drama activities where the mentally handicapped put up small theater plays based on fairytales, if playing an instrument, we would like them to play this during the morning gatherings (We have a piano, cello and different other instruments- or bring your own)
Volunteers will only work with the less handicapped and challenging handicapped.

A typical day could be like this:
7.50 Breakfast (compulsory for volunteers)
8.20 Dishes and cleaning
8.45 morning gathering
9.00 workshops
13.00 hot meal of the day
13.45 dishes and cleaning
14.00 work in the dairy or arranging goods
15.30 free time - sometimes there are activities where volunteers can take place if they wish to.
18.00 dinner
Evenings are also free time, some days volunteer can join folk dancing, visits to the cinema, go to the swimming pool etc.


C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

We would search for a volunteer who is tolerant, open, extrovert who can take part in our daily life with a positive attitude. Respecting the mentally handicapped is essential. The volunteer should preferable have a calm personality, flexible and ready to adjustments since changes can occur with short warning. Interest in our workshops and the handicapped residents is vital such as the respect for the qualities of handicapped persons.

The volunteer should be non-smoker. To have a driving license or play an instrument is relevant but not essential.

We are open to work with any partner and are interested in volunteers from all countries. Selection will be done balancing volunteers qualifications and our ability to meet their expectations. The project will be announced through every available channel.


D. Special needs (if applicable)
The surroundings are not suitable for people with significant physical handicaps and the volunteer must have a personal surplus to take care of others, so we cannot support volunteers with large special needs.

E. Risk prevention, safety and protection
We aim to minimise risks by carrying risk assessments, and the volunteer will be instructed on the security measures and instructed to follow the regulations. We have policies and procedures for health and safety for the staff, and the buildings and the whole area surroundings are regularly revised and supervised regarding risk prevention. Furthermore we follow the Danish legislation on security subjects.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=10000181721