Call for partners and volunteers for an EVS project in Romania – DL: 23/01/2016

Dear potential partners and volunteers,

ZURY Association from Timisoara, Romania is currently searching for 4 partner/sending organizations only from the following programme countries: Greece, Cyprus, Lithuania, Croatia, Slovakia, Latvia, Ireland, Portugal, Spain for an EVS project in Romania which will be submitted at 2nd of February 2016 deadline to the Romanian National Agency and will take place starting with autumn 2016 for 2 years. Below and attached you can find a short description of the project and the activities of the future volunteers.

—

“Step up. Build your career.” is a project-initiative proposal of ZURY Association from TM (RO) whose main aim is to diminish the unemployment rate among young Europeans especially aged between 18 and 25 and to increase their employability grade by investing directly in their capacities, following in the same to accelerate their personal development. Taking into account this context and the fact that the unemployment problem is one at European level, and also in RO the youngsters are most affected by this issue, the project comes as an initiative to support also the local beneficiaries by acting on needs such as: the development and validation of life competences and transversal competences, the need to consolidate linguistic abilities and digital competences, the low involvement of youth in volunteering activities or community actions, low information regarding opportunities for youth at local level, national and European level, the existence of NEET youth (either unemployed or not engaged in any form of studies). The project “Step up. Build your career.” addresses in this way themes and subjects such as youth information, youth employability, lifelong learning, sustainable development, community engagement, international relations and cooperation for development.

The objectives of the project are the following:

1. Creating a learning context of key-competences (socio-civic and communication, digital and entrepreneurship) for 16 young volunteers in a period of 6 months (each)
2. Implementing alternative socio-educational activities for 200 youth and children from the local environment in the social-communication fields, ecology/environmental protection, sport and health and personal development
3. Raising the information grade of 300 local youngsters towards alternative opportunities of self and professional development during the project
4. Promoting active citizenship, non-formal education, tolerance and solidarity among local and European youth during the project

For achieving these objectives, the promoters plan the following activities:

• organization of linguistic and cultural workshops of the native countries of the EVS volunteers
• development of workshops on the following subjects: communication, leadership, sustainable development and environmental protection, a healthy lifestyle
• organization of promotional campaigns for using the bicycle in town (including traffic rules) and the benefits of movement in general
• implementing information sessions regarding self and professional development at European level

For the implementation of these activities there will be used non-formal methods such as: workshops, presentations, role plays, puzzle, group work , Q&A sessions and games, interactive talks and practical exercises, graphic facilitation, audio-video materials, non-formal discussions/facilitation, drawing, self reflection/evaluation, instruments of personal development (tests, plans), brainstorming etc.

The estimated impact of the project will be reflected mainly at the level of participants, EVS volunteers. They will develop new abilities and competences useful both on a personal and professional levels. They will improve their communication and social skills, will learn at least a new foreign language and will acquire aptitudes of self-management. Also, they will become more aware of the opportunities they have in place and will access more easily future jobs from their fields of interest. At local level, youngsters will get in contact with people from other cultures, will learn new languages and will discover new cultures and traditions, will understand the importance of diversity and tolerance among people as well as they will acquire transversal skills that might be useful for them in the future, in the same time. The information campaigns will encourage youngsters to have a healthier life, to understand the consequences of a sedentary life and to develop mainly their initiative spirit, to become active citizens of their communities. Last but not least, the beneficiaries of the activities planned will discover methods and opportunities of development, additionally to the formal contexts and will be better prepared to access them. The benefits on a long-term will be envisioned by: a better personal, moral and professional preparation of both EVS volunteers and local youth to be active on the labor market and to face current challenges.

The project will involve a total no. of 16 EVS volunteers sent by 4 sending org. from 4 countries (W, X, Y, Z). 6 EVS volunteers will be young people with fewer opportunities. The structure of the stages will be the following:

• 1^st of sept. 2016 – 28^th of feb. 2017 (4 volunteers – AR)
• 1^st of oct. 2016 – 31^st of mar. 2017 (4 volunteers – TM)
• 1^st of sept. 2017 – 28^th of feb. 2018 (4 volunteers – AR)
• 1^st of oct. 2017 – 31^st of mar. 2018 (4 volunteers – TM)

The entire project duration will be of 24 months starting on 1^st of June 2016 and ending on 31^st of May 2018.

—

Interested partner organizations are kindly requested to send us more details about their organizations (PIF file including specific expertise in the field – EVS (very important!) and list of projects) and a short notice of interest by 23rd of January 2016 to the following e-mail address: zury.association@gmail.com. Sending organizations who already have interested young people (especially young people with fewer opportunities) to take part in this project will have priority. Interested volunteers are kindly requested to send us a CV (Europass) and an application form completed by 25th of January on the following e-mail address: evs@zury.org as well as information about their sending organizations, if they have one already. If no, interested youth will be redirected to an organization from their country.

The project will involve a total no. of 16 EVS volunteers from 4 different countries. Please be informed that interested partner/sending organizations will commit to sending 4 volunteers each for the entire project, for stages of 6 months each. Please read through the entire description. ZURY Association will make a selection of interested organizations and only the selected partners will be contacted for further cooperation after the mentioned deadline. The e-mails which won’t contain the necessary documents will not be taken into account.

If you eventually have any questions or you need to clarify some things you can write us at the following e-mail: zury.association@gmail.com.

Thank you very much!