A. Project environment: profile of the organisation and local community
The work we do in the youth centre X-Dream in Schwaz is the so called open Youth work. That means that we are an alternative to commercial institutions and we provide the space to the young people for their deployment outside the school, home and job. Our work is based on the principle of voluntariness: Young people have the possibility, without any force to consume and without binding and membership, to use all our offers. Our concern is also to support the own strengths of the young people, like the creativity, sports, music….and the acquirement of social competences and cultural evolvement.
We see our work not as social work, our main issue is work with youngsters in their leisure time.

Our Youth centre
We are giving to our clients between 13 and 21 years of age a supervised leisure time offer. The youngsters are visiting our youth centre mainly to meet their friends and to socialise with other young people. They are talking to each other, playing together or listening to music. The contact to the youth workers is made trough games (cards, dart, table tennis, billiard, playstation, etc.) and at the bar.
All youth workers from our team are contact persons for the young people, not only if everything is fine, but also if there are problems. There are very various problems with which we have to do: family affairs, school or job problems, lovesickness, sexuality, law….
Here they can also find support in reaching difficult decisions, in making career choice, family problems or relations to other groups. Beside of this we try to interfere internal values which are helping to develop social competences.
Our work is also to show the borderlines to afford acceptable co-existence between different peer groups. On the other hand we are keen to expand the perspectives of the young people which are often very limited.
Through workshops and informational events the youngsters will be sensitised for different topics like: culture, law, drug abuse, friendship and relationship, school, family, etc. But they will be also advised to handle this themes critically.

We are investing a lot of time to give the same chances to boys and girls and to support them in their different needs. That means that we have offers for all together, but also divided, gender specific, offers specially for girls and for boys, which are very important for their development.

Schwaz is a small town in the Austrian federal state of Tyrol with 12.500 inhabitants and is on an altitude of 535 meters. It is the administrative center of the Schwaz district . Schwaz is located, in the lower Inn valley.
At its height during the Middle Ages, it was an important silver mining center, providing mineral wealth for both the Fugger banking family and, through them, for the Austrian emperors. During this period, its population of about 20,000 inhabitants made it the second largest city in the Austrian Empire, after Vienna.
Now , Schwaz is an small attractive town in the middle of Tyrol with a lot of cultural and sportive possibilities. There is a small ski region, possibility for mountain biking, hiking, swimming, but we also have several museums, the silver mine and other attractions.
Innsbruck, the capital of Tyrol with aprox. 130.000 inhabitants is 20 km westwards and is very good conneted to Schwaz by train or bus.


B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers
To work with young people in their leisure time and with different peer groups can be very interesting but also very challenging. The idea to invite an European volunteer to the youth center in Schwaz was to build connections between different people. On one side we wish to provide a possibility for young Europeans to get in touch, and learn from inside our Austrian culture, our language and our habits….
On the other side this will be a great chance for our youngsters (our target group are disadvantaged young people) to get in contact with a person from another country who is of similar age like them. This will be an opportunity to "bring" Europe to them, and show them the options they have, but also to start the process of intercultural learning on a higher level. Most of our clients are coming from a very difficult environment: heavy family situation, unemployment, early school leavers, migrants… and the European volunteer would be a living example for them, that things like living and working in another European country is not just something what happens to the others, but also something they could do too. So they could get a chance to expand their knowledge and skills in different fields, which could be also helpful for their career. Our young people would also have a better platform for intercultural exchange.
The local community will also take benefits from the EVS, because this project will in some way change the opinion of the most adults about the young people in general if they can see, that there is a young volunteer from a foreign country who is going to help in a social institution. Intercultural learning will be given also on this level, because our youth center is well integrated in the local community and we are cooperating with many other institutions and NGO´s.

As described the open youth work is offering a lot of possibilities and attractive working fields for a interested volunteer, where she/he can learn many new thing and get some new skills. There is also a possibility for the volunteer, beside the language course to learn actively the German language while she/he is working. The youth center X-Dream is open for all young people independent of their social, economic or cultural origin and this is an excellent opportunity for intercultural exchange for the volunteer, the team and the visitors.
For us it is a matter of course that the volunteer will be fully integrated into the daily work and into the team.
The main part of our work is the every days work in the center and in this part of work the main function of the volunteer would be, to get in contact with the visitors and work at the bar. At the same time, the main task is to build connections and relationships to the young visitors, so the volunteer can provide a basis for the future work, other activities and projects with the youngsters.

TASKS AND ACTIVITIES
- We try to give our visitors offers according their desires. They can play different parlor games, billiard, tabletop football, playstation, listen to the music, watch films or just sitting around. The volunteer will accompany our visitors, while they are in the youth center and she/he will work with them on building groups to create new activities for and with the youngsters.
- The volunteer will have the possibility to organize and arrange different tournaments like football, dart, Table tennis, etc.
- There is also a opportunity to accompany gender specific project or to make workshops within those projects
- We have regularly creative workshops and depending on volunteers interests and desires he/she can work on the workshops. It could be to do handicrafts, to paint or to design.
- In our youth center, it is possible to cook and our visitors are very enthusiastic about it. The volunteer could bring a international touch to our cuisine.
- One of the elements of the youth culture is music and everything what goes together with the music. We are offering to our youngsters plenty of musical and dance events, so the volunteer will have chance to organize and manage those events together with other staff members and young people. The highlights ate parties, DJ workshops, Dancing courses, etc.
- To keep the youngsters busy not just indoors we have a lot of outdoor action. This are events like snowboarding, skiing, high rope, different excursions. Depending on volunteers preferences she/he could take the responsibility for some of this events.
- Thematic weeks are also very popular, and our youth workers are exerted to organize together with the youngsters this weeks. That could be Halloween, Christmas, anti racism, or similar. The volunteer will be great support and could bring his/her own ideas.

Timetable

Working with young people means to agree with working hours in the evening. At the moment we are open from Monday until Thursday form 5pm until 9pm and on Friday from 5pm until 10pm. On Thursday we have our team-meeting (from 2pm until 5pm). Some projects we do on Saturdays in the afternoon, parties take place on Saturday evening. It´s possible that the timetable is going to change, so volunteers must be flexible in their working hours. Youth workers don´t have to work in the morning time and on Sundays, so also Volunteers will be free then.

Percentages:
20-30% bar work in the evenings
20-30% conversation and games
20% sports activities
10-20% assistance in events, supervision
10% miscellaneous tasks (team meetings, repair work, shopping, etc.)
15-20% own projects

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process
The volunteer should enjoy working with and for young people who are predominantly of a lower social background/education and aged between 13 and 21 years.
The volunteer should take an active interest in youth-culture, youth related issues and common interests of young people.
The volunteer should be interested in sports activities such as soccer, basketball and/or indoor games such as billiard, table tennis, chess etc.
The volunteer must be willing to do simple bar work.
The volunteer should have a friendly and self confident attitude towards young people.
The volunteer should be communicative, open-hearted and open-minded.
Volunteers are welcome regardless of gender, nationality or religion.

D. Special needs (if applicable)
n.a.

E. Risk prevention, safety and protection
When the volunteer is starting in the youth center she/he will get an introduction of our tasks and rules. She/he can take the individual time to grow into the daily workingprocess and to take on more and more tasks, again depending on the volunteers personal skills, possibilities and needs.
From the beginning she/he is taking part in the weekly team meeting. The volunteer will get help and support from many sides, espacially from a mentor, who takes care in case of any needs and problems. If required a supervision from a professional trainer for the whole team is possible.
Regularly she/he can speak with this mentor (problems, needs) or reflect the daily life and work in the youth centre.
The EVS gets an "on arrival training" from the Austrian National Agency.
There will be also a Mid-Term Training with other EVS in Austria.
The coordination organisation is involved in the whole project and will support the hosting organisation as well as the volunteer. They will also co-ordinate regular meetings for all EVS at this time who are in Tyrol, so they all can exchange their experiences in a non-formal atmosphere.