1. Project environment

Bitola is with over 100 000 people, the second largest city of Macedonia. It is University city with several faculties and has great student population. The river Dragor streams right in the middle of the town and the divides the old Turkish town from the 18th century town. The latter managed to maintain its beautiful 18th- amd 19th-century architecture. In the other part of town you will find nice Ottoman architecture in the form of mosques, covered markets and bath houses.
The main street of Bitola hosts a lot of opportunities to go out at night, to eat the local food and to watch the locals doing their daily activities. In summer there are a lot of cultural festivals which host music and art. Above all, the multicultural city shows you a taste of orthodox, moslim and roma tradition.
Thirty minutes walk southly is the impressive site of the ancient city of Heraclea Lyncestis. It was established in the 4th century BC, and has an excavated amphitheatre, baths, basilicas and some impressive mosaics. The area is an object of religious tourism, also: The church St. Dimitrija, St maru, Monastir St Jova Bigorski end many others.
Bitola lays in the valley of the biggest mountain of Macedonia: Pelister. This old national park is a nice place to get away from all the fuss and to relax in a natural atmosphere. In summer a lot of people go there to cool down from the hot temperatures in the valley and in winter a lot of people go there to ski and to enjoy the many nice resorts up mountain. The rare glacial mountain lakes are very unique and wonderful to see. For the adventurous types hiking is no problem. There are a lot of good trails that have bungalows along the way.
Up to 70 km far from Bitola there are two lakes: Prespa and Ohrid with beautiful landscapes, historical monuments and opportunities for swimming in the cool, clear water.
The Greek border is 15 km far from the town and offers other various attractions during the weekend time.The city is also famous for the cultural life, we have festivals in whole year, modern art festival, Bitfest, Internacional Film Festival "Brothers Manaki", etc. Also Bitola is having the best night life in the region and secound after the capital, there are very big and modern discotheques.
Shoping, you can find some good and not expensive shops for clothes, accessories and diferent things for you in the shoping malls.
The city also have 2 theatres with every day some preformance, cinema, skate park, outdoor ski park.Bitola is located below Pelister, on of the threee natcional parks in Macedonia, so there are very beautiful mountain paths, resorts etc.
The office of Sfera is in the centre of Bitola. We arrange for our volunteers the accommodation in the central area,usually. That makes them involved in the social life, meet lot of people, be closer to the office and be more flexible to travel by bus or train.
The volunteer will share the apartment in the city and has to cook his/her own meals. The volunteer will dispose of a single room, while bathroom and kitchen are in common. They will not live in a community and they will have only to respect the current rules established by the flat and based on the common way of living together.
The language classes will be given in a private school in the town. We can recommend the teacher, but the volunteer can chouse the teacher by him/ herself, also. The volunteer will always have a representative person from the organization.
The volunteers will have the both a tutor and mentor on place, who will be all the time available for them in order to provide support, answer the questions and so on. One will be more responsible for the technical and practical questions for the volunteer, such as accommodation, language trainings, integration in local community, etc. The other will be more in charge of the EVS activities of the volunteer during the project, such as regular activities in the organisation, its planning, preparation and realisation, as well as the individual project of the volunteer.
The mentor and the tutor will meet monthly in order to understand the project activities feed-back. These meeting will give permit to comprehend if the volunteer likes the activities, if there are any special needs or requests from the volunteer and to cope with potential problems.

2. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

Our project activities gives the volunteers an opportunity of a formative and professional growth. The long stay in Bitola and the understanding of different realities give the volunteer the possibility to develop intercultural competence. The volunteer will contribute with his/her cultural background to improve the resources of the organization and local community.
The volunteers will have a possibility to work in our three programs, and we offer four positions:
a. Responsible for the Youth Fire Brigade Volunteers club.
The volunteer will work within the activities in this club. The youngsters are teenagers and adults between 16 and 25. His/her co-operators will be the office staff and volunteers and other people who are involved in the activities like, workshops in nature, seminars for leaders, team building games.
The volunteer will
- be involved in the designing of workshops and other activities;
- function as a contact person between the club and the Fire Brigade of Bitola;
- be organising volunteer recruitment activities in schools and other organisations by making leaflets, brochures and presentations;
- be doing fundraising activities through projects or business applications.

b. Leadership and democracy program
The volunteer will work within the leadership and democracy project activities.
The project is funded by Balkan Yout and childer Fondation through our partnership organisation Felix and Unga Ornar. This is ongoing, but we want to achieve to make it a long-term project. Volunteers from an EU-country are very welcome to bring us their democracy knowledge and experience. His/her co-operators will be the staff and other people who are involved in the activities.
The volunteer will
- be involved in designing of the strategy to implement democratic behaviour in other partner organisations;
- create workshops and presentations around the topic;
- Establish a club to work around Children's Rights;
- Be making an annual plan for these activities;
- Fundraise through other organisations and business applications.

c. Youth In Action Program
Because Sfera from this year have applied for many project from youth in action other actions accept action 2, we need to make some preparation for our member for the project outsife our country, So the volunteer will help to establish good internacional contact for future partners for our project, to plan and implement some preparation workshops and games for our member becauese we have member that have nevecer been outsife the country.

d. Language Courses from volunteers for volunteers
Courses for the volunteers in the organization which are 44 members, intereseted languages: Spanish, Dutch, Italian, Turkish, German. So the volunteer will gime lessons to the volunteers in the organization and to one primary school "OU Goce Delcev" thet we have cooperation with them. Every day he will have 3-4 hours of lessons and the other time he will spend in the office for preparation of the class, becasue the course doesnt have to be like a ordunary languages course, but it have to be learning language trough other subject, like history, geography, science, art.

e.Volunteer in the Local Firefighter Brigade
Sfera in a cooperation with the LFFB is helpping to the oldest fire brigade in the Balkan, which is from 1836. The volunteer will spend 4-5 hours in the brigade hallping the daily work with the local firefighters, half ot the day shift. His activities also will be establishing good contact between The Brigade, Sfera and the Municipality. The firefighters now are in bad conditions so we would like to give them some internacional help not in physic help but in mentally, with trainings and courses with non formaln education. He also will share his expirience in his country with the Fire Brigade and help them to make the Brigade better and to look like Internacional Institute, because in the brigade also is the SOS Crisis Center which the volunteer will be like a supervisor of their work and the contact between the sos center and the fire brigade.

Apart these activities we are suggesting as general, but not obligatory for the volunteer another extends engagement. Those can take 30 % of the day work of the volunteer.
- upgrade of the web page;
- English classes for the interested target group;
- help in writing and development of suggested projects;
- search on the internet;
- including in the activities for finding new funds, as contribution for continues activities of the NGO.
Through the activities mentioned above, the volunteer will improve and upgrade the knowledge off:
- The volunteer will take part to the staff organisational meetings.
Through the all activities mentioned above, the volunteer will improve and upgrade the knowledge off:
- Fundraising
- Writing Projects
- Presentation
- Communication
- intercultural competences
- transfer knowledge
- improving speaking and writing Macedonian language
- Tim working

The first month will be an orientation period for the volunteer: he/she will have the change to know the different working area of the office o fSfera. The volunteer can be involved in other programs, if he/ she wants, or program`s need, also.The timetable frame on weekly basis will be arranged according to the duties of the volunteer. The volunteer will participate in the on-arrival and mid-term evaluation trainings, organised on the part SALTO SEE resource centre. They will also take part in the pre-departure and evaluation trainings, organised on behalf of their National Agencies of the sending countries.

3. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

The volunteer has to have field working experience in NGO's. Also solid knowledge of working on a computer (Word, Excel, Internet, Power Point, Front page) is needed. The qualities we search for in a volunteer are team working skills, creativity, flexibility, pro-activity, innovation and tolerance. We like dialogue oriented and open-minded attitude people towards cultural diversity would be a useful qualification. And who have good communication skills that are open to work in marginalized and minority groups

4. Number of volunteers hosted: 1

5. Risk prevention, protection and safety

The organization will be responsible for providing safety for the participants. All necessary measures for ensuring participants' safety will be undertaken, and the team of local organizers will be always available for addressing any specific situation that might happened.
Also Bitola is very quiet, safe, city so the volunteer will not have any problems with the safeties
And in case of volunteers from 16 years we will have supervisions, mentors who will look every step in the work.