A. Project environment:

Wojkowice is a small town with around 10 000 inhabitants which is situated in Silesian Voivodeship, which is considered as one of the most resource-rich, industrial and populous region in Poland. Silesia has been well known for large copper mining. In the post-communist times, however, the outdated nature of many facilities led to environmental problems. Wojkowice is situated in the most endangered region as far as economic and social situation is concerned. High unemployment rate (20 %), closing down of the most important factories cause social pathologies. The lack of ability to satisfy basic needs deprives people of seeing any point in their lives. Alcoholism and drug addiction are becoming unfortunately very frequent in the region. Parents of the local youth are very often unemployed, cannot cope with everyday problems and do not take proper care of their children.
Therefore, organizations like ours offer students the opportunity to become extensively educated as well as thoroughly prepared to live in the United Europe of many nations and ready to cope in difficult conditions. We prepare young people to compete on European education and job market.
As Wojkowice is quite small, many people know eachother. Therefore, as our experience has shown, the integration of the volunteers in the local community is quite easy. For the volunteer it is quite easy to get into contact with the local youth. Both the current and ex-members of the Integration Club as well as members of the Club "Tlen" are usually very interested to meet new people and very eager to make volunteers' stay in Wojkowice as comfortable and nice as possible.
Although volunteers should be aware about the fact that on every day basis there is not much going on in Wojkowice, it should be taken into account that it is surrounded by numerous bigger towns like Bedzin, Czeladz, Sosnowiec, Bytom or Katowice (which is the biggest and the most known city in the surroundings). Also Krakow, so called cultural capital of Poland, is not that far away - about 70 km. As there are good connections to all of these places, the volunteers have many opportunities to spend their free time the way volunteers prefer.

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers:

Volunteers' tasks will be closely connected with areas of activities of European Integration Club in the Complex of Schools in Wojkowice. The proposed activities for the volunteers are following:

1) Making students aware (by presentations, workshops, discussions, conversations, etc.) about various issues related to Europe and the specific countries where the volunteers come from:
- culture, customs and traditions;
- political and economical situation;
- attitude towards European integration;
- an average citizen life conditions and the reality of everyday life;
- the ways of spending free time;
- educational system and opportunities of young people;
- the problems of young people;
- the employment chances of young generation;
- situation in regards to respect of human rights and equal and proper treatment of citizens in the society;
- European cultural heritage, prejudices and stereotypes concerning other cultural groups.

2) Making the students aware of differences of various aspects of life in Poland and abroad by involving in international projects:
- helping the Club to prepare foreign seminars, intercultural meetings, exchanges, etc.;
- substantial help in organizing Polish-German school and university students exchanges;
- holding workshops about:
- intercultural learning
- racism
- intolerance
- xenophobia
- anti-Semitism
- the ways of experiencing differences and discrimination and inequality of our societies
- minorities in Europe
- etc.

3) Promoting the European Integration Club's activities in a local community:
- publishing the European Integration Club magazine;
- being in constant touch with the local magazines and newspapers;
- preparing reports about the club's activities;
- staying in contact with the local community representatives - during Europe oriented meetings;
- participation in meetings and workshops, presenting the club's activities and its achievements.

4) Activities aiming at developing young people's personalities in terms of being independent, creative, enterprising both in social and cultural issues as well as those that refer to the environment protection:
- Cooperation in organizing and leading workshops on:
- fight with a social rejection (anti-rasist projects, projects that integrate disabled young people)
- education - young people's rights, drugs, alcohol, crime, health
- Presentation and promotion of the local heritage;
- Culture activities (music, dance, artistic expression);
- The environment protection in a local and European dimension.

5) Helping the students to improve and widen their language skills:
- Give non-formal language lessons for the students that mkight be interested in it (either in English or in mother-tongue of the volunteer).

6) Involvement in activities of youth center of Wojkowice "Tlen" (work with youngsters from 6 to 16):
- playing with the children;
- watching after the children;
- making own workshops with children which support their creativity and provide them with more knowledge about tolerance for other cultures and countries.

7) Giving European lessons or workshops in the primary school of Wojkowice or other schools in the region:
- additional non-formal teaching of English;
- workshops with children.

8) The volunteer can also choose to help disabled, needy students in the age up to 19 years.

The volunteers willing to co-operate with European Integration Club in Wojkowice can choose the areas that are compatible with their interests. The volunteers will not be obliged to join all tasks of the club. They may propose their topics of interest and come up with their own initiatives. The Club is open for cooperation and will provide all the necessary support for carrying the tasks out.

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process:

The Club is open to candidates from different backgrounds. The volunteers could be of any country, gender, ethnic group, religion, sexual orientation, etc. The most important thing while making the selection for us is that the volunteers make a conscious decision and are highly motivated to do their EVS exactly in our organization. We do not require any previous experience, knowledge and skills from the candidates (because all of them can be acquired during the project). Nevertheless, we want to make sure that the volunteers are active, open-minded, creative and responsible persons ready for challenges and willing to learn new things during the project. They should be ready to work with young people, but they should be aware that during their EVS time they will be cooperating closely also with teachers. As the main language of communication in the project will be English (at least in the beginning), it would be good that volunteers have at least basic English knowledge. Also German could be useful as a second language.
We expect the volunteers to be tolerant and willing to deal and live together with other volunteers from different countries and with different social and cultural background. This also includes the willingness to make compromises.
The volunteers willing to apply for this project will be asked to send their CVs and motivation letters. The selection will be carried out mainly basing on these documents, nevertheless, sometimes also short phone-interviews will be carried out with the best candidates.

D. Special needs (if applicable):
The Club does not have any experience and competencies hosting volunteers with special needs, therefore we consider that we are not prepared to host volunteers with special needs.

E. Risk prevention, protection and safety:

The club has already experience with organizing international projects, so the people responsible for the project there are aware about the possible dangers for the volunteers while doing the EVS project. Therefore, the hosting organization will put all the efforts to make sure that the crisis situations do not arise. If, however such situations would appear, the hosting organization will make sure that they are solved in the manner that could satisfy all the parties. The host organization we will provide a volunteer all necessary help and support from his supervisor and mentor while adaptation in a local community and afterwards.
In case, when the conflict could not be solved by the host organization, the sending organization and the coordinating organization might be involved in the solving of it.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=58000426110