A. Nordhausen, with its 45, 000 inhabitans, is situated in the very North of Thuringia, close to both Saxony Anhalt and Lower Saxony. Nearby you also find the Harz mountains, a beloved area for excursions, climbing, trekking, bike riding and activity holidays. The Harz also houses Germany's second highest mountain, the Brocken.
The oldest source, in which Nordhausen is mentioned, can be traced back to the year of 927. The first industry, a spirits factory, settled in Nordhausen around 1500. The people of Nordhausen did not only experience an upswing in the economy. Huge parts of the city were damaged from several great fires (in 1540, 1686, 1710 and 1712).
With the concentration camp "Mittelbau Dora" situated nearby, where 60, 000 prisoners were forced to work and produce the V1- and V2 rockets between 1943 and 1945, Nordhausen was part of the history of the Second World War. Around 20, 000 convicts died in prisonment.
On the 3rd and 4th of April 1945, only a few weeks before the war would be over, 74% of the inner city was destroyed from the British Airforce, killing 8 800 people as well. Thereby, Nordhausen was one of the most damaged cities of the former German Democratic Republic (DDR).
Today Nordhausen is the industrial and cultural centre of Northern Thuringia:
Industrial mainly because of the excavator- production and the traditional spirits factory "Nordbrand". Culturally, Nordhausen offers theatre, a cinema, different museums, the concentration camp "Mittelbau Dora" and several other sights. Discos, nice and friendly pubs, restaurants, a city park, a shopping mall, bowling centres, an indoor swimming pool, our rope course and the climbing tower also contribute to the wide range of spare time offers.

B. Work- and learning possibilities
By "Mobilé" we, together with the European volunteer, want to develop and carry out special programmes for youth, in addition to bringing intercultural aspects to our already existing offers. In doing this, we emphazise the importance of creating an interest in and understanding of the "stranger", his/her culture and way of living by the youths with whom the volunteer will work.
The volunteer's work and activitities
The European volunteers should participate in the internationalisation of our work. Depending on their interests and talents they are welcomed to get involved in all of the mentioned areas, to use their experiences and possible different way of thinking to develop the already existing projects or to create totally new offers and projects.
It is possible for the volunteer to work in any of the mentioned parts of Mobilé.
"The House"
The "House" in the Domstraße represents the creative part of the project. .
The volunteers support the workshop leader or can also develop their own creative projects.
During educaitonal seminars the volunteers assist the referents and seminar group, for example preparing the seminar room or special material.
The mobile leisure time activities
The offers of "Team Mobilé" are based on a fixed programme. However, we can also arrange individual, special or thematic activities. The volunteers will be made familiar with planning and realising such activities. They will learn how to work on the base of a checklist including all the administrative and organisational facts.
During the activities carried out. the volunteers can for instance support and safe the children and youths that want to climb.They might be also responsible for keeping the children that cannot participate in the adventorous activities from getting bored, through playing games or doing what-ever is in the volunteer's interest.
Mentoring a seminar
This field is perfect to become familiar with special methodes of arranging seminars and workshops. The volunteers internalise an essential know how by the practical use of methodes in presentation. It can be helpful for their whole professional career.
The spontanity, creativity and team spirit of the volunteers are important in all of the mobile leisure time projects. The volunteers will take part in the planning and realising of new projects, and learn how to make own ideas develop from a written concept to a practical project. Being to-gether with the children and youths every day will challenge and develop the volunteers' social competence, their team spirit and their ability to compromize. They will learn how to plan a day-to-day-programme and organize projects. Depending on the different interests of the volunteers, the following might be an example of a week plan.
Normally, the volunteers will work 35 hours a week, including language course. Due to the character of the project, however, the volunteers will not always have the weekends off. The working hours and days off will be decided together with the volunteers and ad-justed to the individual teams. Overtime might be counterbalanced by taking a day off every now and then.

C. For one year voluntary service in the project "Mobile´" the following personal qualities are required: the volunteer should be friendly and open-minded, committed, flexible, patient, independent, able to deal with conflicts and work in a team. One should enjoy the work with children and young people and in addition be able to carry out own ideas and projects. As a matter of course a volunteer should be reliable, punctual and work well organized. Finally, as working times can vary depending on the project, time flexibility is needed.
To deal with everyday situations, the knowledge of the German language is a must in basics. Moreover the interest in improving language skills should be existent.
We would highly appreciate the holding of a driver's licence.
At least and as the most important the volunteer should be aware of his/her own responsibility to let the voluntary service become a success. He / She should understand the job as great chance and challenge for his / her personal development.
Additions to selection procedure:
Our vacancies are published at Youthnetworks. Basically we answer all incoming requests if there is a serious interest noticable. In case the minimum standard can not be fulfilled (basic knowledge of german language, furthermore "acceptable" age of volunteers), we inform the volunteers/ their delegation organisation about the reasons for their rejection.
We will send our application form to all applicants achieving the standards. The application form is needed to visualise necessary information about the volunteer's motivation and responsibility. Incoming applications will be evaluated if meeting our expectations and candidates are in line with our team. We try to create a balanced but mixed team regarding gender and nationality. The applications will be transfered to the hosting project. The personnel of the hosting project decides to take up the volunteer or not and inform the sending organisation about the decision.
Basically we are open to all sending organisations.

D.

E. The working conditions in our project are related to the needs of our children. We will make sure that our volunteers will never be alone with a whole class. During the own workshops of the volunteers a teacher 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.
To avoid or to work on homesickness we consciously incorporate the peer group of volunteers. We developed special rituals to facilitate the settle-in the project.
We use every contact with the flat-sharing community to ask about our new volunteers to intervene if necessary.
We think that the contact with other young people is as important as the contact with the other volunteers. So we buy our volunteers 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.
All our volunteers take part in a private language training "German as a foreign language" . The volunteers get a individual language training based on their level of knowledge. The language course normally takes place once a week for 90 minutes.
During the first three month of the voluntary service the volunteers will get an insight into the daily routine of the project and they will learn the used methods.
After this first three-month period, the volunteers should be able to offer small workshops regarding to their own interests and skills to the children. 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.
We have a tutor in every hosting project (trained by our German National Agency). As the team is quite small there is almost every day the posibility of getting in contact with the tutor.
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 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.