Youth exchange: Let’s EVS

Location: Málaga, Spain

Dates: 18 – 25 September 2017

Number of participants: 24

Participating countries: Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland, Hungary, Portugal and Spain

Organizer: Asociación Juvenil Almenaras

Apply hereApplication form

Deadline to apply: ASAP

Inquiries about this youth exchange: Aitor Rando Roldán: info@asociacionalmenaras.com

Costs: According to the aim of Erasmus +, the organizers will reimburse 100% of participants’ travel costs (with cheapest means of transportation; economy class, no taxi) within limits set by Erasmus + Programme upon presentation of original tickets, invoices and boarding passes.

Let’s EVS

The European Voluntary Service is one of the most interesting options for young people at the moment. It allows you to live some months in other country, working for some associations and improving your life in many different ways. It can help you to achieve more independence, to learn other languages, to improve some skills and learn new ones etc. All that knowledge and experiences will help you in the future.

Description

That’s why there are a lot of things to consider before starting this new challenge, but our experience has shown us that the volunteers don’t use to think about that items and just choose the project in a quite random way. That can make this wonderful experience seems worse than it is and the volunteers can’t enjoy all the process. Sometimes, they don’t find out what they were looking for, they have to do some works they wouldn’t like to do or they feel they are just losing their time. In order to change this situation and make the EVS experience better than it already is, six ex-volunteers, that have felt sometimes this way during their voluntary service, are going to tell their story. Instead of just assume it, they searched the reasons and discovered that there are different options to avoid this situation. Now they want to develop strategies to improve the way to choose the projects so every volunteer will enjoy 100% this experience that will change their lives.

How?

During the youth exchange we are going to pass through the process of an EVS, representing its steps in several activities; on the first days of the youth exchange we are going to work on the first process involved in a European voluntary service (How to search a good project that satisfy the individual expectations of each one, first days on the project, knowing the hosting place,..). Around the half of the YE we are going to discover that things which will have importance after the first months of EVS (How to solve problems, the concept of leadership, what is a personal project, …) and in the final days of the YE we will talk about the last moments of an EVS service (Youth pass, final evaluation, we will speak about life after EVS,…).

Our objectives

– Go deeper in all the concept of volunteer and the importance of volunteerism in society building.
– Create a new tool that can help future volunteers to choose one EVS project at the same time that helps associations to improve their pre-departure process.
– Work about the skills, knowledge and attitude that will help future EVS volunteers in the service.
– Work in the process of problem solving and conflict management.
– Learn basics about project management.
– Develop participant’s social skills using non-formal education.
– Encourage intercultural learning.
– Develop the concept of personal leadership.

Who can participate?

The soul of our project, six ex-volunteers from six different countries are going to be our leaders. Accompanying them we will also select other 4 young from each country (Netherlands, Slovakia, Finland, Hungary, Portugal and Spain) aged 18 to 30 years old and interested in EVS program (having been participants before or pretending to be a volunteer soon). Also people from sending associations who want to improve their methods to prepare their volunteers.

Infopack

Download here: Let’s EVS – Youth Exchange – Spain – abroadship.org

Click to access Let_s-EVS-Infopack.pdf