"Sprawni inaczej" Foundation was established in 1989 in Gdansk as a non-profit, non-governmental and independent organization. The aim of the organization is to help mentally and physically disabled people in different ages by creating places for different kinds of education, therapy and rehabilitation. The other function of the foundation is spreading the information and making the education campaign among the society about disabled people and their problems. Besides, they are protecting laws and self-respect of disabled people.
The process of development was very fast in the foundation, thanks to that in 1991 they established the first integration primary school in Gdañsk. The first class was established in Primary School no 79. All the pupils of the class were taught how to learn, work and play with disabled children. This initiative was the first one in Poland. After this event, 2 other schools joined this initiative.
In the same time in Wroclaw was established an integration section of the "Fit differently" Foundation in kindergarten. These two cities (Gdansk and Wroclaw) were models for other primary schools and kindergartens in Poland.
In 1991 in the first base of the Foundation was established a Ceramic-Therapy Studio. This event was aimed to disabled young people who were staying at home. For all the participants of this workshop this event was the first opportunity to leave their houses and break their inactivity. After creating the National Rehabilitee Found in 1993 our workshop was convert in the first Active Therapy Workshop in Pomeranian Region in Poland.
All these kind of activities were very innovative in Poland; that is why it was popular among non-governmental organizations. In the 1991 4 other foundations in Koœcierzyna, Nowy Dwor Gdanski, Wroclaw and Lublin were established.
Another part of our activities are international exchanges. Our Foundation is working with the Dutch organization "Det Classenske Fideicommis", which cooperates with Queen Margaret II. In the frame of this cooperation we are organizing international rest-rehabilitees meetings
Besides, we organized international youth exchanges, seminars and training courses for disabled people and also for people working with them.
All the activities of the Foundation want to break the society's barriers towards disabled people. We are working on local, national and international level.
The Foundation runs from 09.00 till 19.00 each week-day with the help of 9 employees and 5 volunteers.
Our Foundation hosted two international volunteers, besides working with polish volunteers.

The Foundation is situated in Gdansk (500.000 inhabitans). Gdañsk builds, together with the cities of Gdynia and Sopot, the so called Tricity. It is with approximately 800 000 citizens the biggest agglomeration in the Pomeranian region and therefore has a lot of actvities to choose from. Apart from its multicultural history Tricity offers beautiful beaches that are crowded in summer by foreigners as well as Polish tourists. As there are several universities, a lot of young Polish people are attracted by the city and start their studies here. That is why Tricity offers a lively nightlife. Besides, it has plenty of cultural activities (theatres, concerts and an opera), about 10 cinemas can be found and pubs, clubs and discos for every taste.

We are an organization which has a big experience in working on an international field. That is why we would like to host EVS volunteer because we know how important it is to be open for new people, new religions, new culture and new personalities.
We want to host volunteers in our organization to demonstrate him/her and our charges good relationships between people from different countries, people with different religions, different economic situations or disabled people. We can teach people to be open-minded and showing respect towards differences.
We can provide her/him the training course about ceramics and different kinds of art like photography, paintings, production of handmade paper.
The foundation is divided into 3 units. Unit 1 includes pottery-workshops, unit no 2 consists of household-, arts- and handmade-paper-workshops. Unit 3 includes candle-, IT-, metalwork-workshops and therapy-workshops in the gym.
The volunteer will work in one of the activity theraphy-workshop called "Theraphy by art". The main activity in this unit is pottery. The volunteer will be responsible for establishing the archives. These archives will consist of all the ceramics, photos, paintings and other things made by handicapped people in all the units. Proposed activities for the volunteers are:
1. Collecting the work from the units:
- the volunteer will have to visit all the units of the Foundation and collect the art-works of the handicapped.
2. To catalogue the art-works.
- the volunteer will have to make a data-base of the art-works of the charges. She/he will have to work with computer but also with data-base on paper.
3. Describtion of the art-work (author, name, technique).
- All the art-works need to have a special description. The volunteer will have to create it and to teach all the staff, volunteers and charges how to sign the art-works.
4. Organizing exhibitions.
- The foundation is organizing exhibitions in the whole Tricity in galeries and museums. Sometimes we also lend the art-works to other organizations. The volunteer will have coordinate that work and try to find new places for the exhibitions.
5. Keeping the board-bulletin of photos from our events.
- In all the units the Foundation has board-bulletins. The volunteer will have to take care of collecting photos from the events or putting information at the disposal of the charges and their work
6. Taking photos of the art-works and publishing them on the web-side of the Foundation.
7. Preparation of the international youth-exchanges.
o The foundation is organizing international youth exchanges with different countries. The volunteers will help planning the projects' programm together with the project team,
o help in administration work,
o in translations,
o with preparatory meetings of Polish participants groups,
o help in running some activities during the project and if wanted running independantly some activities, e.g. socializing and getting-to-know-each-other-games or the country's presentations,
o taking photos during the project,
o help with summing up evaluation forms,
o attending evaluation meetings with the project team.
8. Taking photos during the workshops and other events.
9. Help in everyday work of the organization.
- Everyday the organization-works requires some office work (e.g. send faxes, copy documents, send correspondences), meetings with different people interested in what we are doing & keeping the office in order. Volunteers tasks will be to take part in all that work when it is needed equally with other volunteers and employees.
10. Helping with picking up handicap people from their houses to the Foundation.
11. Once a week volunteer will take part in the activities on the pool with the charges.
12. Helping with the production of promotion materials for the Foundation.
13. Leading language animation.
We leave space for volunteer for his/her own ideas.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=58000274510