Project environment: profile of the organisation and local community

· Outline the project environment for the suggested voluntary activities, including the local community where the project will take place (e.g. geographical, social and economical environment).
· If the host placement is located in a live-in community, please include the rules and conditions that apply also for the volunteer.
Youth centre Brežice is a public institution with basic working field for youth and with youth. Our work is focused on recognizing needs and interests of youth, providing needed space, equipment and knowledge to meet these needs. We are trying to create a suitable environment for youth, where they can create on various fields: cultural, social, sport, enterprising…
Our regular activities: information and counselling service, organising concerts, exhibitions, readings, themed events, literal evenings, support for local youth culture, programmes for children, holidays programmes, international activities (Youth Programme, Leonardo da Vinci Programme), we coordinate the activities of local action group to fight against drugs, we carry out the league of little football, lead a project of encouraging enterprising among youth.
Monthly we organize concerts of popular and alternative music, theatre plays, exhibitions, and literal events. To our users we offer info point, where they can find informational materials from various fields, in the club they have free access to daily, weekly and special newspapers. For those who are working on projects with and for youth and for youth's own projects there are available music rehearsal room, dark room for developing black white photographs, multimedia computer room with video montage, internet connection, scanner, printer and project office with office infrastructure. For our youngest visitors we have every Saturday creative workshops, activities during summer and winter holidays, summer camp, Carnival, Santa Claus, monthly puppet shows.

A group of nine people with regular working hours are involved in the basic activities of the Youth centre, where each of us is in charge of his/her field. There are also volunteers involved in our work, mostly high school students, together with them we develop and implement various projects. Our activities are mostly aimed at children and youth, we also encourage, support and cooperate with individuals, formal and informal groups, which have their work directed to groups of youth.
In Youth centre Brežice we have good cooperation with all the institutions from local environment: both high schools, primary schools, centre for social work, employment office, health centre, police station, municipality and together with them we carry out common projects.
The Brežice town has approximately 6.500 inhabitants, the Brežice Commune 23.000. Brežice lies in the south-eastern part of Slovenia beside the Slovene-Croatian border. The social structure is heterogeneous, mostly among young people there is a lot of unemployment.
In the town and surroundings there are a lot of interesting sights from beautiful landscape to museums with one of the most beautiful knights hall, performances, sights… In the Brežice Commune there are two secondary schools and a high school and eight primary schools that participate regularly in our activities.
From Brežice there is a good railway and street connection with our capital Ljubljana, other towns Maribor, Celje, seaside and also Croatian capital Zagreb. In our local environment there are a lot of associations, which are mostly active in sport and cultural field. We will encourage the volunteer to get involved in their work according to his/her interests. In our town there is a cinema theatre with regular programme, in close by town Novo mesto also a multiplex. Every year we have several theatre plays and a festival of baroque music. Near our town there is also a health resort with many sport and entertaining activities.
The hosting organisation is not in a live-in community.



Proposed activities for EVS volunteers

· Describe what you can offer to volunteers in terms of service and learning opportunities.
· Please, explain what will be the role of EVS volunteers in the host organisation.
· Describe the activities in which the volunteers could be involved and the activities the volunteers could create in your organisation. Give examples of typical activities for the volunteers.
There will be all equipment and working rooms available for the volunteer to use according to the way agreed and with suitable training. Youth centre Brežice has regular trainings for its employees, the volunteer will also be able to participate in them, and we will offer him/her the training of Slovene language. We expect that the volunteer will bring a part of his/her culture into our organisation and local community and with that contribute to better connection among European nations.
The volunteer will by no means replace an existing or potential new job. For our organisation the volunteer will represent support in various projects and with this involvement contribute to higher quality of those projects.
The activities of the volunteer will be mostly dependent on individual needs, requests and capabilities of the volunteer. We will encourage him/her to develop his/her own projects and help him/her with all our knowledge and equipment. The volunteer will have the opportunity to get involved in our regular activities according to his/her interest. We will give him/her also the training necessary for those projects. He/she will have the opportunity to assist in programmes for children, organisation of events (organisation of concerts or promotion), preparation of exhibitions, upgrade activities of video group, help in promoting voluntary work, in greater detail EVS and Youth Programme in general, encourage youth to get more actively involved into civil society… As his/her projects the volunteer can prepare course of his/her language, according to his/her knowledge he/she can also lead various workshops and prepare projects based on his/her own ideas.
The working hours of the volunteer will be adjusted according to the needs of the organisation. There will be also included course of Slovene language and evaluation of the EVS project. He/she will have two free days a week (weekend or else). In first three months the volunteer will have weekly evaluations, later monthly. He/she will have 24 days of annual holiday (for a project of 12 months) or proportionality according to the number of working days. The holiday will be arranged by agreement between the volunteer and us.
First two months of volunteers stay in our organisation we will devote mostly to getting to know each other, our ways of work and programmes and projects of Youth centre in which the volunteer will be also involved.
The person in charge of the volunteer will be the contact person of the project, who is half of her regular working hours in charge of international field. Beside that we will offer the volunteer also a mentor, with whom he/she will have regular weekly meetings to discuss about eventual problems. There will be also other employees involved in the project and will help the volunteer according to their knowledge and field of work. Within the working hours there will be also time planned for discussion where the volunteer will have the opportunity to express proposals for his/her own projects.



Volunteer profiles and recruitment process

Please describe the profiles of volunteers you would like to receive in your organisation. Include information on how you ensure an open and transparent recruitment process as well as the overall accessibility of EVS to all young people. Consider further information about the type of sending organisation you want to cooperate with. This information can help the match-making between volunteer candidates, sending organisations and your organisation.
The volunteer has to embark the work and life in our country; he/she has to be interested in exploring other cultures. We expect the volunteer to be highly motivated for working in our organisation and to have the willingness to adapt to changes. He/she has to have a strong will to integrate in foreign society in actively participate in activities beneficial for the local community. It is very useful that he/she is interested in our working field and is prepared to add his/her part to our work. The volunteer has to be willing and capable of working both individually and in a team.
We try to promote EVS among our youth as much as possible and to involve them in projects according to their interest regardless of their background, education, gender… Among received applications of the volunteers we decide upon that person for whom we think that is most suitable for us. This selection is made by the members of the staff.
We expect the sending organisation to be dedicated to the project, be able to communicate with us well and quickly and above all to prepare the volunteer very well.



Special needs

If your placements are open to hosting volunteers with fewer opportunities, please provide information about the competence, experience and infrastructure and (human or other) resources available in your organisation to accommodate and support them.
Our EVS project is open also to the volunteers with fewer opportunities in various fields (social, economic, cultural). According to the concrete volunteer we will adapt to his/her needs with the help of the sending organisation. Our programmes are also orientated to youth with fewer opportunities mostly on social, health and economic field. We are specially trying to promote and implement various mobility programmes for youth in this specific population because we think that these programmes are usually hardly accessible to this population.
Youth centre Brežice sees the Youth Programme as a rare chance for youth with less opportunities and would like to give more emphasis on this target group in future. We are rich in precious experience both with voluntary work and with working with youth with fewer opportunities, however we haven't carried out any projects that would combine both. With eventual inclusion of a volunteer, who would recognize himself/herself in our EVS project we would like to get experiences for future work with this target group.
Our centre has a precious regular structure of employees who are according to the needs involved in different parts of the EVS project. In any case there will be expert workers helping us in the project from our regular partner organisations (welfare work centre, health centre, employment agency, association for mental health Ozara), which are regular partners in projects of our centre.
We will strive to offer to international volunteer with less opportunities, who will we host, substantial support in various fields mostly with inclusion in our local community.
We are aware that volunteer with less opportunities is more sensitive to the influences from environment. Through preparation we will get to know volunteer's needs well and try to adapt to them as good as possible. All employees of Youth centre will be acquainted with special needs of the volunteer and we will adapt to them. In the preparation there will be involved local partners (welfare work centre, health centre, employment agency, association for mental health Ozara), which will counsel us with extensive team of experts (social workers, psychologists, educators), their experiences and knowledge. Together with those organisations we are also willing to organise necessary extra trainings and make agreement about mentorship. The building of Youth centre is partly accessible to handicapped people; we will extra adapt this to the special needs of the volunteer.

Risk prevention, safety and protection

Please describe how you will guarantee a safe living and working environment for the EVS volunteers, how you will prevent risks and crises and how - in the case of EVS volunteers aged 16 or 17 - you ensure appropriate supervision, child safety and protection.
During the whole project there will be regular communication between the volunteer, hosting and sending organisation. We will exchange all the information and support needed. During the actual activity and living in Slovenia or abroad, the volunteer will be supported by the mentor and other members of the staff of the hosting and sending organisation, as well as in formal and non formal time, in working and in personal life. The hosting and sending organisation will take special care of suitable accommodation, international and local transport and insurance. In the hosting organisation there will be all rooms, equipment and other sources available for the volunteer.
If problems would occur the all three partners of the project-the volunteer, hosting and sending organisation- will do our best to solve them to the benefit of all included.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=66000084446