EVS project in "La Strada"
Bolzano,Italy
11 Months EVS project to be held from the 6th of March of 2018 to the 31st of January of 2019.
- Name of the project: EVVIVAA: Esperienze per Valorizzare il Volontariato e l'Inclusione attraVerso Arte e Animazioni
- Coordinating Organization: INCO - Interculturalità & Comunicazione
- Foreseen starting and ending date of the activities: 06-03-2018 to 31-01-2019
- Sending Organization: Asociación Cultural Euroaccion Murcia (Spain)
- Hosting Organisation: La Strada-Der Weg (Bolzano, Italy)
About La Strada-Der Weg
Today La Strada - Der Weg counts on 120 employees and around the same number of volunteers distributed in 5 areas:
- Culture, Territory and Family: Incentive measures in the youth cultures field, sport & education, street-working projects, prevention measures in schools, advice, service to families. 2 youth centers in Bolzano and 1 in Merano work daily with school-aged children to give them a homely place to spend their free time in a safe and proactive atmosphere. Big importance is given indeed to incentive and support personal initiatives proposed and organized by the kids themselves.
- Addictions: Help for people with addictions and psychiatric illnesses related to addictions, communities, social re-integration projects and mutual self help groups. A team with big experience, composed by a coordinator, educators, pedagogy experts, psychologists, psychiatrists, doctors and nurses works to create a sheltered place to reach a physical and mental stabilization. Inside the community there are different activities (sporty, artistic, cultural...) aimed to develop social skills and emotion managing; they also run rehabilitation workshops such as musical and art therapy.
- Women and Equal opportunities: Projects for trafficking and exploitation's victims, support to young mothers, individual projects.
- Prevention and Advice: Mediators expert in the fields of youth problems, education and legal matters provide mediation between the parts.
- Kids and Youth :Support and boost youth in difficulties through residential communities, educational activities and mediation in penal matters. Especially in the Kids and Youth Area we are working to support the educational skills and capabilities
of families, but there are still a lot of situations which need intervention, projects and services to give children adequate conditions to live in. In this context the 3 residential communities in Bolzano follow social and educational goals through individual projects, supporting kids in the fields of education and training, work, and in finding an autonomous way of living. The daily relations with significant adults gives to the communities' guests the possibility of experiment themselves, grow up, test themselves,
re-elaborate their histories and make the best choices for their future. All this requires and offers to volunteers at the same time the possibility of playing a central role in the growth process of kids, representing a young and positive figure of adult.
- Sancta Clara: here are hosted kids from 8 to 16 years, sent from the basic social services.
- Il Focolare: for kids between 14 and 18.
- Pantarhei: for kids between 8 and 14 years.
Volunteers working with do not substitute for operator, but they represent an added value, bringing their own point of view and proposals for activities and strategies.
Especially young volunteers, who represent a growing and strong group, actively participate in proposing and creating some things or events that had a big success, such as our soccer team "Excelsior", known as the most loser and fairest and most inclusive existing team and youth events such as "ArtMaySound" (a non-profit festival dedicated to music, comics and art).
Proposed activities
Volunteers will have the opportunity to be involved in the activities of:
1. The youth centres in Bolzano and in Merano:
- support children and youngsters with their homework,
- collaborate with the educators in organizing and implementing recreational activities;
- support educators in helping youngster in implementing their own initiatives;
2. Office in Bolzano:
- support in communication activities: drafting and sending newsletters, updating face book and the website, updating the database of life- long learning courses, volunteers and partners;
- organizing awareness campaign about different issues such as EVS and more in general the Erasmus + programme;
3. Residential structures:
- collaborate with the educators in promoting free-time activities;
- collaborate with the educators in household issues (setting the table,collaborating with the organization of the house, etc...)
- accompany the boys/girls to different appointments, etc.
Food and accomodation
You will get free accommodation for the whole duration of your voluntary service. You will live in a single room or in double room in a shared flat.
You will get food allowance and will share some lunch and dinners in the different communities.
More about Bolzano
Bolzano-Bozen is an autonomous province situated in North Italy with having its borders to Austria and Switzerland. Together with Trento, it makes up the region of Trentino Alto Adige/Südtirol one of the five autonomous regions in Italy. Bolzano happens to be a unique example of cohabitation with hosting Austro-Hungarian origined inhabitants as majority of its population who speak an Austro-Bavarian dialect of German, about a quarter of the province is Italian-speaking and a small minority speaks Ladin as mother tongue, while both Italian and German are the official languages of Bolzano-Bozen. As a result of sheltering a multilingual and multicultural population, Bolzano happens to be one of the most important examples of ‘coexistence atmosphere’ in the territory of Italy.
The province in total has more than 500.000 inhabitants andhosts the Free University of Bozen which makes it easier to find free time activities compared to the rest of the smaller Italian cities. Bolzano is also blessed with the luck of being situated among the Alps and the Dolomites which were declared as world heritage by UNESCO in 2009. The town of Bolzano is in easy commute to Trento, where InCo is :-), in about 40 minutes by train and in about 1,5 hours to Innsbruck, Austria.
Useful links
Here you can find the website of La Strada: http://www.lastrada-derweg.org/166.html
Here you can find the website of InCo, the coordinating organisation: http://www.incoweb.org/eng
If you would like to know more about the EVS experience, check out the blog of the volunteers:
How to apply?
Send application form and CV (in English) to gines.euroaccion@gmail.com with the subject "EVS in La Strada".