The voluntary activities will be implemented on the teritory of Haskovo town, in the building of Youth centre, Daily home "Marina" for children and youths with disabilities, an orphanage for children and youths "Asen Zlatarov" and another orphanage for small chidlren "Nadezhda". We have long time experience in the work with these social institutions and a lot of young people volunteers from the local community are getting involved in the activities.

This will enrich not only the children and youths from the institutions but also the Euroepan volunteers themselves and the people around them. This way they will have an easier approach towards the culture, history and traditions of Bulgaria and the region. The duration of the voluntary service will be 12 months, and during the first two months the volunteers ill be trained about the way of work, conditions of work and the type of activities.
The role of the volunteers is to show, put in practice and exchange their experience and skills in the field of arts, animation activities for children, organizational skills in the work with children. After the preliminary training they will have opportunities to project activities, to organise children in group workshops and to put into practice their skills and knowledge.
Such activities could be for example: music workshops for children and youths, folklore dancing typical for the region and country of the volunteers; producing puppets for children theatre, producing cermacs, glass painting, outdoor activities and etc. The project opportunities for the volunteers to create, organise and implement their own workshops depending on their wish and skills.

Young people who we would like to work with should be firstvery well introduced with the conditions of EVS and furthermore with the thing to be a volunteer. This is very important for us and our work because we are expecting from young people to be initiative, active and very motivated to work as volunteers. We are open to work with all European countries which are members of Programme YOUTH. For the selection of the new volunteers it's very important for us to know more about the sending organisation, especially with what volunteers they work. If they have been trained or if they have known anything about the country where they would like to do their EVS projects. We are working on a kind of a questionaire for the candidates. They should be open-minded, communicative and positive. We don't put age limits, but it's very important to know if the volunteers have had any experience in the work with children. It is necessary to speak English at least basic level because of the easier start of learning Bulgarian.
We have excellent contacts with organisations which are sending and hosting, such as: Holland, France, Germany and Italy and we hope to receive more candidatures from other European countries. At the moment we are in contact with a German girl - EVS candidate from an organisation that we have good established relations with.

We are working over an idea to start hosting volunteers with disabilities but for now we have difficulties to provide comfotable accommodation and easy access to the working place. This would be very useful for our experience and especially for a young people with special needs to give them opportunity to stay in a foreign country, learning its culture, traditions, getting to know the local people and building up their system of values and accepting the differences.
We have conditions to work with young people with less opportunities from far regions, rural areas, socially weak families, ethnic groups and etc., because we believe that giving them this chance for non-formal education we help them to become more aware, more self-confident and ready for decision making.

Our town is not one of the biggest cities in the country. The Youth centre is situated in the city centre. Nearby there is a student house where the volunteers are accommodated. The building is secured 24 hours; the gates are closed at 12 p.m. There is security group watching the people going out and coming in the building. The place for having meals is also very near the youth center and it's not necessary to take the city transport. The team from Youth centre regularly implements instructions for safe work, rooms and offices are safe, social homes, where the volunteers have visits.
Except this we provide a mentor who will always be available for the volunteers, to help them when it's necessary, to advise them and not at a last place to know the project activities very well.