Profile of the host organisation:

In the Special School with Boarding Home at Baindt there are living blind and visually handicapped children and young adults with varied abilities and handicaps. The children and their families are coming from a broad and open catchment area.

The Special School accepts children from the age of 2 years, when necessary they can live and learn in the institution up to 24 years. Besides of their visual impairement most of the children show additional handicaps which have an impact on their cognitive abilities, physical condition and their behaviour.

The school runs an information centre which offers an early intervention program and support for parents with blind or visually impaired children. Before compulsory school education the children can attend the pre-school, where the development of an individual learning behaviour is of most interest.

Blind and visually impaired children are attending the primary or special school, and after finishing the 4th grade they will be supported to attend to the secondary school inside or outside of the organisation., but learning disabled children will stay in the special school of the organisation.

Children with additional cognitive disabilities and various handicaps are attending the Special School for menatlly handicapped children.

Blind and visually handicapped residents, a lot of them with additional handicaps, are accommodated in assisted living groups. Residential care is characterized by covering the entire area of Life and not only the domain of learning situations.

The range of services include day care and boarding school as well as all-the-year guidance.

Religious and cultural backgrounds of the residents as well as the staff members are manifold and allow a broad variety of personal contacts. The respect for fellow human beings with all their capabilities and disabilities establish the basis for the conjoint living and working.

European Volunteers are expected to keep the rules of our work with handicapped young people:

acceptance of young people in their particular personality

ability to cope with strain by challenging behaviour

full cooperation with staff members

loyal and responsible acting according to the particular objective of our work

to be courageous to act creative and flexible

Description of project environment:

The Municipality of Baindt ist situated in the north of the town of Weingarten in the county of Ravensburg, about 25 km north west of the Lake Constance.

The beginnings of the settlement are poorly documented. The first mention in records can be found in connection with the establishment of the Cistercian Monastery in 1240. For a long time the development of the village was closely connected to the history of the Monastery.

Above all the integration of refugees after World War II accelerated the growth of the population and caused a grave structural change. Within a few decades it developed from an agrarian village to a modern community with about 4.900 inhabitants.

The School for Blind and Visually Impaired and the Residential home are situated closely to the parish church in the center of Baindt. With its 80 places the facility is straightforward.

The enclosed site comprises a recently built school house, 2 home buildings, 2 dwelling houses for staff members and an exterior surface partly untouched and car-free. A new garden of the senses is also open to people from the community and enables personal encounters with residents.

The neighbouring town of Weingarten represents together with the towns of Ravensburg and Frierichshafen the high-level center of the region Bodensee-Oberschwaben. The county of Ravensburg has altogether 270.000 inhabitants and provides a wide range of learning and leisure time opportunities.

By public transport the towns of Weingarten and Ravensburg as well as the Lake Constance are within easy reach.

The integrated public transport system of the region Bodensee-Oberschwaben provides a well developed infrastructure for regional mobility.

To ensure regional mobility European Volunteers get a monthly ticket of the regional transport association which is valid in all means of public transportation in the county of Ravensburg.

B.

During their voluntary service the volunteers will get non-formal qualifications as well as key qualifications in the areas of character-building and social and linguistic skills. They get to know different ways of life and learn to deal with young disabled people. They learn organisational structures of daily care for disabled people and how to find their place in it.

Volunteers will get to know during their activities social needs of people with impaired senses.

The self-reliant offering of activities for handicapped people will pass on self assurance and confidence in their own skills to volunteers.

Volunteers can take part in a language training for European Volunteers arranged by the coordinating organisation. The aim of the language training is the command of oral every day speech with a special focus on the terminology of child care. Through language training the volunteer should be enabled to manage typical situations of daily life they will be confronted with during their voluntary service.

Apart from language learning the language training serves as a weekly meeting for European Volunteers from several EVS projects situated in the region.

Every month a day of studies will be organised vor the volunteers, where the volunteers can seek advise for their choice of occupations in future, meet counselors from universities and colleges, visit the European Parliament in Strasbourg, go on excursions, or take part in cultural events. The content of this program will be discussed by the group and participation is left up to the volunteers.

Tasks:

Volunteers get the opportunity to contribute - under guidance of staff members - to the support and leisure time program of the school and residential home. Volunteers can introduce their own ideas and abilities like computer literacy, graphic design, mechanical skills, music playing etc. In the beginning the volunteer will only assist the groupleaders, later she/he will take on responsibility - as far as admitted by legal liabilities. Emphatically volunteers are invited to bring in their own ideas. Staff members will appreciate all initiatives to develop additional proposals for leisure time activities and will support planning and realization. Volunteers could develop their ideas for new games, activities or stories into a personal project if they so wished - creative ideas are always welcome.

Volunteers are invited to participate in internal vocational training seminars.

Volunteers are expected to accomplish a fulltime voluntary service of 35 hours per week. Overtime doing will be balanced by additional freetime.

C.

The volunteer should be open-minded to work with young people with impaired senses. It's necessary for the volunteers to be sociable and outgoing, to have enthusiasm, and to be tolerant to foreign cultures. They should be able to interact well with different groups of people. An enthusiastic, responsible and flexible attitude towards the work is very important. Experiences in the care of handicapped people would be helpful, but not a prerequisite.

Volunteers should able to get easily in touch with the staff members as well as the handicapped people. A basic knowledge of german language would be helpful. A driving license class B would be helpful.

Candidates should describe their motivation for a voluntary service in this project in a detailed motivation letter. Important are neither national or social background, gender, language skills nor level of education, but a convincingly motivation.

D.

Volunteers with special needs could be accepted after consultation with the hosting organisation to find and to agree appropriate opportunities of voluntary activities

E.

The organization provides continuous monitoring, including easy access to the contact person (Tutor), regular dialog with the volunteers, in which the options for personal development and the interests of the volunteer are being discussed.

To prevent crises from occurring in the first place, volunteers will be given any training necessary for them to carry out their tasks.

Volunteers will be informed about their rights, regulations in the host organization, consequences of unacceptable behaviour.

In terms of risk and crisis prevention it is very important to keep all persons involved in the project informed to be able to act immediately in the case of a crisis.

However if problems occur, volunteers have different people to contact and discuss problems with. The different people are pro-active in seeking area of concern and actively finding solutions to the issues arising.

The line manager in the respective working group is on hand daily for problems, the director of the hosting organisation is accessible for volunteers every day and the co-ordinator is available by e-mail and phone at every time but meets the volunteers weekly or biweekly during language training.

Weekly volunteers can meet during language training participants from other EVS-projects from the region to exchange experiences.

Volunteers wil have the opportunity to stay in contact with their family and sending organization via e-mail or telephone at least on a weekly basis.

To ensure regional mobility volunteers get a monthly ticket which is valid for all public transport associations of the administrative district of Ravensburg.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=6001422001