Project environment

Our principle: "We support integration" stands behind our work and our encounter with people with special needs. The key tasks of the Caritas (for people with disabilities) are encouragement and attendance for people with special needs through the integration process into everyday life. Through furtherance and attendance for children, young-adults and adults, it helps to relief families as well as education and help for occupational integration. The provider of our institution is the catholic church, but our children have different religions.
For the EVS-project we have two departments to choose. One is the department living, the other one contains the integrative kindergarten and the after school care centre.
St. Isidor looks like a small village. In the middle of this village is a church and around the church are different houses. In this houses you can find flats, kindergarten, after school care centre, a treatment centre (Ambulatorium) and 3 special schools. You can also find the management and the directors in this village.

St. Isidor is a living placement for about 95 young persons. In each flats are living 6 children with own educators with disabled pedagogy.
In therapy, there are physical, psychological and occupational therapy, a therapy with horses is also made.
Not only the children which are living in St. Isidor are visiting the kindergarten and the after school care centre also other one.

Living: for children and young-adults with special needs in St. Isidor/Leonding,

Integrative kindergarten and after school care centre: small mixed age (also for children under 3 years) provide optimal conditions, in which children with different needs will individually accompanie. For children and young people of school age with and without interference

Therapy and advice
Ambulatorium St. Isidor with development-diagnostic and medical-therapeutically help
Integrative Horse-centre
Psychological advice, diagnostic and therapy
MEANDER - Health-support-project for family members of children and young-adults with special needs

Total number of staff in the host organisation 20
Number of staff and volunteers directly involved in the proposed EVS project 11
Number of national and international volunteers already working in the organisation 10

Next to St. Isidor you can find two big shopping centres, a cinema, and a bowling centre.
St. Isidor is next to Linz. The bus will bring you directly into the city in about five minutes.
Linz is the third-largest city of Austria and capital of the state of Upper Austria. It is located in the north centre of Austria, approximately 30 km south of the Czech border, on both sides of the river Danube. The population of the city is 189.343 (2007), and that of the Greater Linz conurbation is 271. 000.
Linz is very proud of its culture, which links the traditional to the contemporary. The Ars Electronica and the Brucknerfest are the main cultural events in this context. These diverse and ambitious cultural activities in our Land are also honoured by being nominated as "European capital of culture 2009".

Proposed Activities

Living in St. Isidor:
The children live in different houses with their child minder.

These priorities and deployment activities are done:
Monitoring, support and care according to the individual needs of children with disabilities:

Support and assistance in everyday activities
Assistance with personal care and hygiene
Help with the food intake
Accompaniment in leisure activities
Accompaniment and support for the perception of contacts with doctors and medical professionals
Supporting children in their independence and help to implement their goals
Collaboration with colleagues
Participate in meetings

A possible week schedule might look like this:
Mo - Fr:
breakfast service: awaken children/adolescents, support in the morning toilet, prepare/preparation of breakfast, to get ready for school/work/apprenticeship
do the housework, organizational tasks/documentation, errands, shopping
On the morning until midday the children/adolescents group's home are closed!

midday/afternoon: kindergarten children and pupils coming home on different times, prepare lunch, escort the children to therapy or to the doctor, helping with the homework, doing the housework together, planning the spare time and the sports, preparing dinner, doing the afternoon programme (playing, painting….), support in the afternoon toilet, documentation, exchanges among colleagues

On Friday the children and adolescents have their weekend trip home, so the next duty begins on Sunday afternoon.
Not every Friday is a weekend trip home, so you have to plan the weekend, the spare time programme in consultation with special teacher for spare time, entertainment, family-like sequence

Kindergarten and after-school care centre:
an EVS has to do:
Kindergarten and after-school care centre educators in support of the daily work in special education
organization of the daily routine (for food preparation, outputs, learning, ..)
maintenance and care of disabled children on several difficulty
completing the educational requirements
assist in the maintenance and care of materials

The EVS has also the possibility to go on holidays with the children an to take part in events from our institution (like annual works, Christmas celebrations and so on..)
A rotation between the departments is also possible.

Expectations on EVS:

Interest in working with affected children and adolescents, acceptance and respect for the different living environment-related attitudes and behaviors of children. Value estimated at the end of communication, respect for personal boundaries, respectful handling prudence, willingness to help and act with "common sense". Willingness to reflect on one's own work ethic.
Furthermore we would like that the volunteer bring in his own culture. It is important that our children know other cultures. It would be nice to get some international flair in our work. In addition our children should develop comprehension of other cultures. A volunteer is also an enrichment for the whole team.
We would like that the volunteer shows our children his country maybe with a singing evening or with a special meal. In the kindergarten he can read stories or fairy tales. The creativity has no limits!

To encourage volunteers in our organisation: St. Isidor is situated beyond Linz, so there is no noise and you can enjoy the family-like atmosphere. The volunteer lives in an own small flat and has the possibility to retreat. Furthermore is it easy to get in contact with others because the team is young.

Our staffs are skilled workers with disabled pedagogy. The knowledge and new ideas / creativity can be important for the volunteers. This can open a new perception. A change of social skills will improve both. Furthermore the EVS volunteer will be a part of the team, and there is also the possibility to get more responsibility for the children! The team is looking forward to the European enrichment.

Maybe our children will be an EVS volunteer too!

Volunteer profile:

The EVS volunteer should have a good self-confidence and flexibility, open minded and of course no fear of people with disabilities!
Requirements and conditions which an EVS should meet:
Communication skills
Empathy
Relationship ability
Flexibility
Reflectivity
Appreciation, tolerance
Team spirit and cooperation with other areas
Mental and physical resilience
Extension of their own social and professional competence
no fear of disabilities

Verein 4YOUgend as coordinator of this hosting project will take care, that this project will be announced through different networks and contact channels. We inform about vacant EVS places through different "channels", networks and already good working networks…..but we are always open for "new" partners….
It is important that the volunteer expresses his/her real motivation on the topic of the project.
We select volunteers together with the teams from our projects.
In the project there are no special skills required. Furthermore it is an asset that the volunteer has no fear of people with disabilities!