Project Environment

The objective of the project is to create better understanding of mentally diseased persons by young people. To bring some diversion into their lives and to allow also heavily disabled persons a intercultural learning. On the other hand the volunteer will have the opportunity to learn about the Austrian /Tyrolean culture. Our project is situated in small village in the mountains near the Italian boarder. Our communities are situated in two villages, St.Jodok and Griess am Brenner.
There are around 1000 inhabitants per village. The infrastructure contains a grocery store; a music store; hair dressing; a soccer team; and other several clubs.There are several possibilities like go hiking, climbing, skiing, swimming, biking. The next bigger city is Innsbruck, which is located 35 km away from our village. There you can find different cultural possibilities.
The volunteer will live in one of our communities, where she/he is offered an own room in the same house with the occupants and some staff members.

Daily activities/workshops:

painting, form sculptures, repairing and producing furniture, making pottery objects etc. The project also tries to offer spare time possibilities for the occupants. The volunteers will accompany them for example: during free time or sport and culture events, walking through the beautiful landscape of the region, visiting exhibitions.

Beside the daily workshops the occupants of Arche need to attend a doctor, do shopping or just visit someone. Therefore they have to be accompanied by the volunteer and/or someone from our staff. The volunteer will enlarge the possibilities for them to go outside whenever they want.
Very important task are celebrations (traditional celebration, birthday or moving in day). The volunteers should help to organise a party or some other celebration. Through this the volunteer gets an idea about culture and habits of Tyrolean life.

Housework:
There is also work to do inside the house together with our occupants. The occupants need help with all the little daily things in life, like waking them up, cleaning and dressing themselves, having breakfast, lunch or dinner, helping them to bed etc. This contains also supporting our staff in housework tasks like cooking, washing, ironing, cleaning, shopping.

The volunteer is invited to realise their own projects and involve occupants. They should bring new creative ideas and suggestions. New ideas are always welcome.

8.00- 10.00 wake the occupants, help them with the morning routine: wash, dress and breakfast
10.00 - 12.30 possibilities for the day: accompany occupants to workshops, assist them in drawing and handicaft-work, one of our occupants likes skiing, another one needs to be accompanied to the doctor.
12.30 -13.30 lunch with the occupants
13.30 -18.00 break
18.00 - 21.30 start with a litte review of the day, then preparation of the dinner and eat together. After lunch watch TV, play games, make music or sing, read stories. And afterwards accompany the occupants to bed, help them with washing, read them a good night tale.

Percentages:
Routine: washing, dressing 10% (important: this is a propostion: the volunteer can feel free do to this. He is not forced to do it. Usually from experience the volunteers need some time and afterwards they feel able and good to support the handicapped persons in those matters)
Eating together: 10%
Day tasks (workshop): 30 %
Evening programme (playing) 15%
Realize own project 15-40%
Team meetings 10%
Support in cleaning, cooking 10%

Volunteer Profile

Volunteer candidate has to be, first of all, interested in working with disabled people in Austria, and has to be ready to face a new cultural environment. She/he should be patient and like to work with disabled people. A basic knowledge of German would be an advantage as this is a German-speaking atmosphere and the inhabitants of the Arche don´t speak any other language. But it is not a condition.

Following criterias are important:
- motivation to work with disabled people
- readiness to work in a team
- readiness to live in a small community
- motivation to learn German language


All volunteers who send us their application will be considered. The coordination office InfoEck in Innsbruck will receive the applications and forward them on to us. We are making our decisions about the volunteer in the team. When we have made a selection of 3 best candidates, we are going to contact them and ask them more specific questions to figure out who has the biggest motivation to participate in our project.

The volunteer also has a mentor. Regularly he can speak with this mentor (problems, needs) or reflect the daily life and work in the Arche Tirol. The volunteer also takes part in house meetings and supervision. There will be also a Mid-Term Training with other EVS in Austria. The project is also instructed in Volunteers rights and the coordinating organisation is in permanent contact with the project.