The YMCA recreation centre Kollm is mainly used by children and youth as well as school classes and the owner is the YMCA Schlesische Oberlausitz.. It is a centre with full board. In addition the offers include hiking, games, topics of conversation.
Kollm is a small village with about 250 inhabitants in Oberlausitz on a reservoir near Niesky. In the season there are many tourists, the place is characterised by agriculture. High unemployment has brought the people to move away, there are few offers for children and youth.
Recreation time possibilities: the reservoir offers many things like swimming, surfing, sailing, pedal boats, boating, tennis, bowling in the village, bike rental.
Four times a day the bus goes from Kollm to the nearest town Niesky (about 20 minutes). From there you can get to all the bigger towns by train or bus (Görlitz, Löbau, Bautzen, Dresden).

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers
The EVS project is divided into 2 areas:
1. YMCA recreation centre Kollm
2. child and youth work of the YMCA in the villages around Kollm
In the recreation centre the volunteer supports the staff by the following tasks:
- welcome, contact to the guests (especially children and young people), sports and topical offers,
- introduction of possibilities in the centre for international guests, especially from Poland and Czech Republic
- publicity for the centre
- shopping for the recreation centre
- practical work for the renovation of the centre
Depending on the skills of the volunteer it is possible to learn special handycrafts or to bring in his/her skills in the
programme of the groups. Especially the communication with the guests is important for learning the language.
In the YMCA many things are done voluntary. The members are very dedicated to the YMCA work.
This is an importanf fact for international volunteers.
Here they can learn what it means to support other people.
The EVS-volunteer is equal part of all staffs of the recreation centre. He takes part in the staff meetings and in the team lunch and gets all information.
2. child and youth work of the YMCA in the villages around Kollm
sports, topics of conversation, creative and outdoor activities in the child and youth groups which are prepared by the volunteer together with the staff.
After a period of two months the volunteer should learn to assume some parts of the programme by himself and afterwards to lead the groups with the staff.
learning opportunities:
educational knowledge in child and youth work, guidance of young people, encourage young people for voluntary work, knowledge of organisation and sports
The volunteer is an equal part of the team and is invited to advanced trainings for child and youth work.
On this field it is possible for the volunteer to create an own project for a group programme and to bring in his/her own culture.

C.
Profile:
- the volunteer should be open-minded to the Christian orientated values of the youth work
- he/she should be able to get in contact with children and young people easily
- he/she should be able to work independently and to cooperate with other members of the staff
Information:
- until now there is no information about job offers on our web site, this will be changed soon
- our coordinating organisation will make a first decision considering the profile of the host organisation. After that the managing committee will decide about the volunteer candidate.
sending organisation:
We like working together with sending organisations which work in the area of child and youth work.

D.
We would like to host volunteers from Romania because we have had relationships as partners to Romania for years. These volunteers partly come from economic disadvantaged families, have never been to another country or have little language knowledge. This partly requires bigger care efforts or we try to finance a language course before the EVS.

E.
At the beginning the volunteer get a map with all informations about the YMCA( names and addresses of the staff, call numbers of the staff, overview about the various projects, guidelines), which gives him the possibility to orientate. The volunteer gets a mentor in the project. During the staff meetings is the possibility to supervise the arranged activities and to speak about problems.

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=6001113761