A. Project environment: profile of the organisation and local community
The youth center Oberndorf was founded in 1999 as an open meeting point for the local youth groups with support from the city council of Oberndorf and the catholic church.
Since autumn 2001 it is run by the political and religious independent association "Verein für offene Jugendarbeit in Oberndorf" = "association for open youth work Oberndorf" and is located in the city hall of Oberndorf.
The center is the main meeting point in Oberndorf for the youth scene between 12 - 18 years. The average number of visitors is about 70 per opening. The young people coming to our center are mainly from Oberndorf or neighbourhood. Target groups are beside the local youth scene especially disadvantaged and underprivileged youngsters as migrants, unemployed, and socially discriminated youngsters etc.

With a mix of activities (as described below) and opening hours, the youth center tries to support participation within the community of Oberndorf, to improve the integration status and to give shelter and backup when necessary. Further it wants to support useful leasure time activities.
The website of the youth center can be visited at www.juz-oberndorf.at

Current activities of the youth center (shortly: JUZ)
1. Ongoing activities:
- newspaper "hot news" is created and written by youngsters themselves with support of the youth worker.
- DJ- workshops and DJ-specials for various DJ Know How (as scratching / turntable use/etc)
- Dancing classes for HIP HOP and classic dancing (mainly in autumn/ winter), partly the classes are given by the youngsters themselves - there is an active HipHop formation, that resulted out of a former Action 3 - youth initiative in 2006.
-Videonights
2. Standard opening hours: internet cafe (3 computers), billard, table soccer, games (chess etc)
3. Cultural activities:
- Hip Hop Jams
- concerts (mainly local groups) - Concert "Spring Rock", Punk Rock Show (classic street punk), Easter festival with "Porridge", "Requiem of a dream" with "Harbi's Project", Rosi&Franny singing hits and ballads etc
4. Fun factor:
- Miss/Mister Juz Contest (aspirants had to dress up according to special mottos. Girls had to dress up as boys and v.v.Then they had to present themselves on a catwalk and act according to the moderation)
- karaokee night
- dance contest
- indoor soft-ball hand tennis
- smaller contests testing skills and slickness
- videonights (videos on a large screen troughout the night until 8 o'clock in the morning)
- funny psychological (nonsense) tests
5. Participation in the community
The Juz was in charge of the conception, performance and implementation of a team of young people in charge of youth in the community as link between community government and youngsters in the city. The Juz still supports the so called "JBAs" (Jugendbeauftragte = local youth representatives) and guides them through public discussion, youth topics and problems. The Juz organized also discussion meetings with the community politicians and finally performed the elections.
6. Workshops and discussions:
Examples of subjects are: Alcohol, youth prevention work (as e.g. sniffing), laws and rules, etc.
7. Other projects
Organisation of a soccer and beachvolleyball contest for the youth centers in the area with a big frame programm (like bodypainting, henna tatoos, hairstyling, bungeerunning, etc) to improve the cooperation between the youthcenters and to foster youth exchanges in the region.
8. PR work
Information in the community or local newspaper; Annual report; Flyers, posters for activities; show case outside the building;
9. Promotion of junior Juz-clients
In cooperation with local schools special try out dates for younger people (12 or 13 years old) are held to give them the possibility to get familiar with the Juz and its offers in a protected environment.
10. Cooperation with schools:
School classes are given the possibility to hold special lessons in the youth center (like discussion forums, film workshops, foto shooting stories etc). Further so called "laboratory companies" that should give the youngsters in school the opportunity to find out skills and to see how a real company works, can use the Juz for their projects.
11. Consultation: Job hunting, apprenticeship, candidacy, conciliation of agencies and offices in charge of the respective problems
12. Special holidays and feasts: Halloweenparty, Valentines Day (love quiz), Christmas, Carneval, etc.
13. Sport: Table soccer competition, Box show, Breakdance perfomances, etc.
14. Next bigger project: we plan to organize a project around the topic of alcohol abuse and violence within youth groups, but also towards vandalism and acts of aggression.

The most important rules during the openings hours of the youth centre are: no alcohol, no drunkards, no drugs, no nicotine and no violence (neither psychical nor physical) and no weapons. The discipline in the youth center is quite okay due to existence of various peer groups. Thus, rules are accepted and basically obeyed because they also fullfill a protective function for the groups themselves.

Details of the youth center
Size: 200 square metres, DJ-room, internet caffee (special room), main room with dance floor, office, corridors
The team exists of two permanent leaders of the youth centre and the EVS volunteer. Depending on the project, there are also about 10 youngsters who are able to help as volunteers (computer, DJ course, Dancing course and other special projects and workshops).

Openings hours:
Tuesday: 17:00-21:00 open running
Wednesday: 17:00-21:00 open running
Friday: 18:00-22:00 open running
Saturday: 18.00-22:00 open running

* the youth has the possibility to talk confidently with one of the leaders of the youth centre when needed, or after appointment. Important topics for the youth are: finding work, finding lawful information and support for youth projects.
Also the volunteer will work outside of these hours to prepare or do activities outside of opening hours. The average working time will be 25-30h/week.

Holidays:
During school holidays like Easter or semester break holidays we have special opening hours depending on the necessities or request of the young people.
Summer holidays are from mid July till the end of August - this is the time when the youth centre is closed.

About the local communitiy:
Oberndorf has about 5.500 inhabitants. It is located 20 km north of Salzburg town (the main city in the province of Salzburg which is located in the middle of Austria) right at the riverside of the "Salzach" and it has a good connection via the city-line-train to the city (every ½ hour from 5:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., duration: 25 min). Industries, trades, schools and farms are located there. In the region Oberndorf is the biggest city, a nodal point concerning schools, shopping possibilities and cultural live. A big part of the citizens commutes to Salzburg city. Oberndorf is a frontier town of Laufen in Germany/Bavaria and has besides that a migrant part of 10,5%.
The youth centre is integrated in a shopping- culture- and school centre.
In Oberndorf there are a lot of associations and organisations/groups (mainly in the cultural or sportive field). The youth centre cooperates with them as much as possible (eg.: the box club, fire brigade etc.).
The youth centre works also together with the local schools (Hauptschule = secondary school, Polytechnischer Lehrgang = polytechnic school, Handelsakademie = commercial college, Handelsschule = 3-year commercial school). Projects are: "laboratory companies" (as described above), drug information sessions, Unite parade truck decoration, practical training days, etc.
Also the famous 'silent-night-chapel' is located in Oberndorf.

About the capital of the federal state of Salzburg:
Salzburg is the fourth biggest city in Austria (150.000 inhabitants) and it is at the same time the capital city of the federal state of Salzburg. It is situated 300 km west of Vienna right at the border to Germany. Apart from Vienna Salzburg is THE city in Austria to attract tourism. The beautiful old part of the city is overlooked by an impressive fortress on a hill. The region around Salzburg is very scenic with lakes and mountains allowing a lot of leisure-time activities. The city is renowned for its musical festivals (summer and Easter). There is also an university at which 20.000 students are enrolled.

For more information have a look at the homepages: www.salzburginfo.at, and www.oberndorf.salzburg.at .

B. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers
Our volunteer can be active in various fields, according to his/her interests and motivation. S/he will support us about 30 hours / week, the division of tasks could be like this:
20% project related work (organization of events, workshops, juz-newspaper, concerts). This working part is partly to be performed together with the youngsters, partly only by the staff and involves also own initiative projects)
50 % supervision and activities with the young people during regular opening hours
20 % preparation & administration (preparation of the progamme for the opening hours, follow up work/reworking of opening hours (helping with the settlement of small financial issues, reports, preparing .small specials (like quizes etc), shopping
10% meetings and team-sessions, project planning

A weekly timetable could look like this:

Monday: off
Tuesday:
16:30-17.00: Preparation of the youth center for the opening hours together with the staff (if food or drinks are missing, everything is okay in the DJ-room and with the computers (checks), sighting of things that were lost in the youth center, check up of DJ lists and other event lists)
17:00-21:00: Normal afternoon opening hours: during the week only 20 - 40 people are frequenting the youth center - here the volunteer has time to talk and chat with the youngsters, to play billard, table soccer, chess and to play at cards. Further he or she serves drinks and small snacks from the bar and cares about special requests (concerning jobs, appliancies, internet researches etc). She/he also acts as a kind of supervisor.
21:00-21:30: Reworking of the programme of the opening hours with short team supervision, helping with the settlement of small financial issues, reports, filling in of working hours in the time table, short discussion if anything special occured that has to be taken care of durning the next openings, evaluations
Wednesday:
15:00-17:00: consultation hour: During the office hours the youth has the possibility to speak personally and confidentially with one of the leaders of the youth centre.
17:00-21:00: Normal afternoon opening hours
21:00-21:30: Reworking of the programme of the opening hours with short team supervision and evaluation.
Thursday:
9:00-12:00: Normally one or two youngsters are cleaning the youth center being paid for. In the meantime project planning, paper work and press related work is to be done.
15:00-17:30: project time for the Juz-hot news newspaper (the meeting time is flexible and has to be agreed with the participating youngsters). Topics are discussed, crossword puzzles and psycho-tests are developed, articles are written, layout has to be created.
18:30 - 21:30: For 20 - 30 evenings in the year dancing workshops are carried out. The job is to serve drinks in the breaks and to help with the financial settlement afterwards. The volunteer can participate in the dancing classes or do project work.
Friday:
15:00-16:00: Shopping for the week (the supermarket is 50 m from the youth center, no car needed) /or Posters and flyers have to be posted in Oberndorf in case of events; time for copy work
16:00-18:00: Supervision with the team and developing a work and time plan for the next week.
18:00-22:00: evening opening hours (up to 80 people are frequenting the youth center). The volunteer acts as an additional person in charge of the realisation of the programme. The volunteer has time to talk and chat with the youngsters, to play billard, table soccer, chess and to play at cards. Further he or she serves drinks and small snacks from the bar and cares about special requests (concerning jobs, appliancies, internet researches etc). The afternoon time is also time for realising own projects/activities.
22:00-22:30: Reworking of the programme of the opening hours with short team supervision and evaluation.
Saturday:
18:00-22:00: evening opening hours
22:00-22:30: Reworking of the programme of the opening hours with short team supervision.
Sunday: closed

Additional events and special supervision hours (2 hours monthly) with a psychologist and additional seminars or meetings with the local government are not included in this time plan, only the regular activities. According to the working hours performed, one day off a week can be agreed with the team.

Holidays: Holidays in a balanced manner are possible anytime when discussed with the team
Mondays and Sundays are always free, at least one Saturday a months is also freeOfficial holidays: 10 months EVS project - 20 working days off

C. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process
We are willing to host volunteers from various disadvantaged backgrounds, if we know in advance to be able to support him/her. The volunteer should have a basic knowledge of the german language, basic knowledge of computers /programs could be helpful.
Further, the volunteer should be able to work independently and is motivated to show his/her own initiative.
The volunteer has to be motivated to work with youth.

D. Special needs (if applicable)

E. Risk prevention, safety and protection
The volunteer will have supervision hours with the team but also with his/her mentor. The board of the youth center is also very active and shows interest in supporting the volunteer on a regular bases.
The youth center guarantees a safe working environment, Akzente Salzburg as the coordinating organisation guarantees safe living conditions. Oberndorf is a quite calm and safe place to commute to, the public train from Salzburg to Oberndorf is a direct line.