The youth hostel and educational centre "Rothleimmühle" in Nordhausen, is a recognized youth educational institution of Thuringia and associated with the German Youth Hostel Association.

The Rothleimmühle is one of the establishments of the JugendSozialwerk Nordhausen e.V.

Since 1998 it has been working on the base of the pedagogical concept "Feel good - to move, to relax, to eat - but how ?".

Main target group are children, youngsters, young adults. The project is situated in a beautiful landscape in the north of Thuringia, on the edge of the Harz-mountains in the county of Nordhausen. The region has a high unemployment rate. The city has about 35.000 inhabitants. There is a theatre, a cinema, an indoor fun pool, several museums, a climbing tower and a rope course, several pubs and discotheques. There are a university of applied sciences and a college for foreign students. So there are a lot of young people from all over the world living in Nordhausen.

In the "Feel good" concept creative, adventure and cultural/ tourist activities are very important. At the same time it is indispensable to incorporate the interests of children and young people.

"Feel good" is a high-quality concept for youth hostels, which focuses on producing a good-feeling-atmosphere for the guests, on cooperation at the face and on the incorporation of cultural institutions.

Main activities of the work in the "Rothleimmühle" are connected with:

- extracurricular youth education

- international youth exchanges

- pedagogical care of groups (families, disabled people)

Activities of extracurricular youth education in the fields of political, social, cultural, natural and health education are most important. They shall give help and orientation on the way to a self-determined life in a pluralistic society and enable young people to participate in social processes.

Other goals are to enable to deal with the ecological base of life and a healthy way of life.

The principle of our offers are: voluntariness, orientation on the participants regarding the themes and methods and last but not least to be wide open for all children and young people independent of their social background, nationality and religion.

For many years the project has experiences in international work. Several times every year there are held international youth exchanges, some of them the project organises itself. These are bi-, tri and multilateral meetings of young people or specialists in the frame of program YOUTH or the German children- and youth plan.

Since 1996 the project has been hosting European volunteers. In addition the project hosts national volunteers in the ecological or social year.

B.

The volunteer will be offered different learning possibilities:

- intercultural learning, group dynamic, methods of child- and youth work, self management and team work, …

Beside this he / she will improve his / her German knowledge.

The volunteers will get to know the base of our work - the special concept "Feel good" and how to put it into relation with the interests of young people.

There are three main focuses of volunteers tasks:

- pedagogical work and animation

- preparation and evaluation of activities

- administrative tasks

In detail this could be:

- preparation and realisation of youth exchanges / family and leisure time activities

- work with children- and youth groups

* language animation,

* creative and sports offers,

* theatre,

* adventure pedagogic,

* night walks,

* discovering the city,

* ecological parties,

* cooking,

* holiday activities with children

- administrative tasks

* correspondence

* poster design

* copying

Main focus of the contents of the work is health prevention.

(exercises, stress management, healthy food, alcohol and habit formation prevention)

C.

- to be very involved

- empathy ability

- friendly and charming personality

- artistic / cultural interests

- fast perceptive faculty

- creative / artistic / sports talents

- flexible

- to be motivated to improve the German knowledge and to use it

- driving license

- ability to work with standard software

We are open to work with any sending organisation.

D.

E.

The working conditions in our project are related to the needs of our children and youth (between 8 and 16 years old). We will make sure that our volunteers will never be alone with a whole class or group of children. During the own workshops of the volunteers a staff member will support them or the class will be split.

The volunteers will live in a flat-sharing community with other European volunteers. Everyone will have his/her own room but they will share bathroom and kitchen. In the flat exist all necessary furniture and electrical equipments. We will provide bed clothes and towels. The volunteers have to clean the flat by themselves.

We don't plan to host underage volunteers.

We already gained a lot of experiences in sending and hosting volunteers and beside this we continuously read all publications from our National Agency. So we are aware of a lot of problems that might occur and we are well prepared to solve them.

1. Home Sickness

We always involve our current volunteers in the pre-departure arrangements for the new volunteers, e.g. we give them the e-mail addresses of the new volunteers, so that they can get in contact with them before their arrival. We believe that this pre-departure contact helps our new volunteers to feel more comfortable with the unknown situation and also prevents fears and prejudices.

We have special rituals on the arrival day of a new volunteer, e.g. the tutor from the hosting project and one or two "old" volunteers pick him/her up from the train station, meanwhile the other volunteers prepare a dinner-party at home. Furthermore the other volunteers have decorated the room of the new volunteer with "WELCOME"- posters and other small things.

During the first week the "old" volunteers ´guide` the new ones. They go together to all necessary authorities, make a trip through the city and so on.

We use every contact with the flat-sharing community to ask about our new volunteers to intervene if necessary.

2. Loneliness

We think that the contact with local young people is as important as the contact with the other volunteers. Nordhausen is a small city with a lot of national and international students. There are a lot of possibilities for free time activities for our volunteers, e.g. the climbing tower or the indoor pool. Furthermore Nordhausen is located in the middle of Germany, near to the Harz-mountains and it is easy to go by train to our neighbour federal states Saxony - Anhalt, Lower Saxony and Hesse. We support our volunteers by buying them a special card for trains, which offers a discount on the tickets. This helps them to stay in personal contact with their new friends, even with them from the seminars organised by the National Agency.

3. Language Training

All our volunteers take part in a language training (German as a foreign language) in Nordhausen. The language training is offered during the whole voluntary service.

4. Underchallenged / Overworked

The target group of the hosting project is very grateful: curious, open minded children and young people who are on a school-, weekend- or holiday trip. If the volunteers love to work with children or young people, they will enjoy the work in this project and they should not feel overworked.

During the first three month of the voluntary service the volunteers will get an insight into the daily routine of the hosting project and its concept.

After this first three-month period, the volunteers should be able to offer small workshops regarding to their own interests and skills and regarding to the concept of our institution. Therefore we talk to them about their ideas and wishes but also about their fears and expectations. Furthermore we assist our volunteers with developing a schedule and realising the workshop. Regularly the tutor of the hosting project carries out meetings with the volunteers to avoid an underchallenging.

5. Mismatching

Nearly every young person knows the structure of a youth hostel from his/her own experience, so the expectations of the volunteers can't be that wrong. We know that it will take some time to feel comfortable with all the details of our special concept and that this could be a risk. But we will advise them and support them during their first weeks and we are sure that this will help a lot.

After the first volunteers have finished their voluntary year, we will ask them to write a report about their experiences. Later we will send this reports to our prospective volunteers, so that they can get an insight into the daily routine of the youth hostel and their future tasks.

6. Mentoring

We have a tutor in every hosting project (trained by our German National Agency).

The advantage of the youth hostel is, that there is only a small team of staff members, so the tutor will be able to have daily contacts with the volunteers. The staff members working in the administration of the JugendSozialwerk Nordhausen e.V. will use every opportunity to get in personal contact with the volunteers. Furthermore they are responsible for keeping the contact with the sending organisation, controlling the compliance made in the project description and in the Activity Agreement and organising joint activities between the volunteers from the different hosting projects of the JugendSozialwerk Nordhausen e.V.

We know that volunteers often keep their problems for themselves, e.g. to solve them alone or not to bother their tutor. In this special situation it can be difficult to find a constructive solution, because very often the volunteers have already made their decision to leave the project. To avoid this we carry out regular meetings between the volunteer, the contact person from the administration, the leader of the hosting project and the tutor of the volunteer.

The first meeting takes place before the arrival of the volunteer (certainly without the volunteer), here we discuss the "arrival ceremony" and the settling-in period.

Later the meetings will be quarterly to reflect the past three month and to discuss e.g. the own workshops of the volunteers. Approximately six weeks before the end of the voluntary service we carry out a meeting to evaluate the project, to prepare the reports for the National Agency, to prepare the YouthPass or to discuss about possible prospective projects of the volunteer.

In spite of all our precautions we know that it could happen that one of our volunteers would like to leave the project. We always convey them that this is uncomplicated and has no personal consequences for them. But we attach great importance to exhaust all possibilities to redress the causes for the wish to leave (discussing the problem with the volunteer, the hosting project, the sending project or with all together).