"We have carried out this project to bring European volunteers as ambassadors to the facilities of the project partners in Jena. They were representatives of their country and their culture and returned to their home countries as ambassadors for Germany and Europe. Participants received further personal and professional training and left the project with an increased awareness of the EU, its values ​​and other cultures. The objectives of the project in the European Voluntary Service were the promotion of European values, intercultural and religious understanding, promotion of European citizenship and peaceful coexistence. The foundation for this was formed for each volunteer, by spending a year of cultural exchange, understanding of commonalities and differences, and by living and working in a foreign culture.The four participants were school leavers, students, university graduates and the unemployed. They were between 18 and 29 years old. Two of them were youngsters with fewer opportunities. The sending organizations were from Spain and Turkey. The adolescents were admitted to Jena in a Kindergarten and in organizations active in the field of youth welfare. The participating institutions benefited from new ideas from the participants. Youth-political, systemic and organizational effects were achieved through European thinking and action in the youth field. The volunteers supported the hosting organizations in the daily project work and carried out their own small projects. In addition, we conducted the ""volunteers go for a fair Europe"" festival at a local school with the volunteers.The children, adolescents and adults in the projects, who came in contact with the participants on a daily basis, were made aware of other cultures and mentalities, which contributes to cultural exchange and therefore to more openness and tolerance. This also applies to the staff, tutors and mentors who had contact with the volunteers.At local and regional level, we have promoted youth mobility activities, such as European Voluntary Service, through various events. At the international level, we have intensified our partnerships with sending organizations. We develop a sustainable network, which facilitates the cooperation between the partners, so that we can initiate better joint projects in the future.The long-term benefit of this project is, on the one hand, the strengthening of the European awareness of the participating volunteers, as well as the publication of the Erasmus + program among the German youth. As a coordinating organization, we can thus give more young people a chance to seek advice and be sent by us in the EVS."

"It is a longht term EVS that will be held in the city of Pitesti, 100km away from Bucharest, Romany. 3 volunteers (a boy and two girls) between 19 and 22 will be the participants. The three volunteers have a great sensibility for the respect and protection of the environment, considering that it is vital to aware everybody about this issue. The main goals that want to be achieve through this project are:- Provide a non formal and intercultural education in the field of youth.- Boost youth participation in the activities aimed to develop local areas.- Promote sport values and healthy paces of life among youth people, so that to the personal and communitarian experience will be added values such as compromise, fellowship, cooperation, improvement, empathy... promote voluntary activities in sport, together with social inclusion, equal opportunities and awareness of the importance of health-enhancing physical activity, through increased participation in, and equal access to sport for all. - Foster the protection to the green areas, so it enhance the new and recent goal of the European Commission about the integration and participation together with the LIFE programme. - Promote the culture, dialogue and the social integration and the citizen participation. The activities that will be develop will tackle about: 1. Environmental protection - There will be a big ecological event involving 100 voluntaries all around the city. The activity will consist on a protection and conservation of the green and touristc areas of the region.There will also be seminars and workshops in schools and in the university in order to aware about the necessity of value of the environment through reals and insitu activities. The goal is to see the side effects of the human action in the environment. There will be an activity called ""Lets do it Romania"" that thakes place in many other European cities. The aim of this campaign is to recolect garbage and waste.2. Education though sport - In a formal way, the association play part in national sports championships which allows to their participants to find out values of equality, fellowship, coopeartion, help, balance, strength... and this is also possible by the open aire activities that are organised: trekking, orienteering, climbing, mountainbiking...The association boost also the participation in any group sport in which a cooperation is needed.At a regional level they also participe in fooball, basketball...The methodology and the technics used to achieve the goals are based in the education through the practices and the experience, education through theoretical and informative sessiones that after that can be putted in practice. - Formal education technics.- Group and dinamic preccess technics.- Creativity technics.- Evaluation and decesion making techniscs.- Cooperation technics.- Planification and organisation technics.We expect that the outcomes and the benefits intended had an international dimension because the values intended concern every human being. It is expected that the activities aimed to educate in environmental values, had a real and direct benefit in Romany, and it is also expected that this action last over time.Moreover, once the participants came back to the sending country, it is expected that they could spread among its relatives this values, maybe in a smaller scale (reclycling, well used of natural resources, respect for the environment...)Regarding to the sport values, it is expected that all the community could take in mind the importance of welth pace of lives, being aware of the direct consecuence of it; in our daylylife, in the mood of the people and even in the way of see and live the life."

This nine months EVS project allowed a group of four volunteers to take part in voluntary activities in 2 not-profit organisations in the area of Mantova (Northern Italy): cooperativa Agorà and cooperativa Bucaneve both work in the field of social inclusion of disabled people. In this project, four sending organisations are involved. The volunteers are Canelle, Camille and Valentin from France and Lidia from Spain.Alce Nero has been responsible for the coordination of the project with the sending and host organisations and for the distribution of of the grant among the partners, in line to their respective responsabilities.Alce Nero gave support to all organisations during all the process, from the volunteers's selection to the final evaluation of the project. Alce Nero has been then present during all the development of the project, welcoming the volunteers at their arrival, introducing and supervising the evolution of the project for its whole duration and falicitating their participation to the on arrival training and mid term evaluation. Alce Nero has also guaranteed to be present for the learning process and the insertion in the service and ensure a common thematic approach and regular contacts with the other european volunteers of Mantua, in order to improve the impact, accessibility and visibility of the European Volunteer Service.

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We would like to carry out this project to provide an alternative and holistic form of early years education to our local community.The project – Thomastown Community Kindergarten – is a Steiner Waldorf based Kindergarten and its aim is to provide a warm, nurturing environment to children aged 2.5+ - like a home away from home. The aim of Steiner Waldorf education is to educate the whole child, head, heart and hands. The Steiner Waldorf early years curriculum is broad and balances the needs of children. It achieves its objectives by encouraging/facilitating learning through play, emphasis on nature-based play, the maintenance of daily and weekly rhythms and unhurried learning.We will have one volunteer at the project and the activity will last for 7 months - from 1 February to 31 August 2016. The profile of the volunteer will be• Interested in working with young children• Interested in the Steiner method of education and interested in learning more about it• Interested in Childcare/teaching as a career• Have skills or interests that could be easily transferrable into learning experiences while in the Kindergarten e.g. volunteers with an interest in arts and craft, music, gardening, cooking, fundraising, blogging• Have interests that match activities available in Thomastown e.g. choir, art, sport, environment• Show an interest in taking on projects and getting involved in groups• Have shown some initiative in previous activities undertaken – some volunteering experience however short the time period.To facilitate language learning and cultural exchange we do not chose volunteers with the same mother tongue or from the same country.Description of activitiesThe volunteer will work alongside members who are responsible for the overall well-being of the children. The volunteer is an extra person in the Kindergarten and his or her role will be to assist in the Kindergarten sessions in the mornings as well as to help the management committee (parents) with many other activities involved in running this project. The volunteer will attend a weekly meeting where the past week’s work will be reviewed and the coming week’s work will be planned. This is a central part of the reflective and planning process.The volunteer will be actively involved in the Kindergarten from 8.45 to 13.45 each day. In the afternoon/evening, he or she will work on a variety of tasks along with teacher / volunteer parent body who are responsible for the running of the Kindergarten or will meet with her mentor or spending time on her own project/journaling.The working methods for the volunteer will initially be job shadowing / hands on experience followed by daily reflection. Once the volunteers are settled into the project, the methods applied will be learning through on the job work, supervision, reflection and critical analysis of the day and mentoring.The volunteer's work tasks and learning will be managed by goal and target setting which will help all concerned to focus attention on the job in hand. Goals will be SMART - S (Specific) M (Measurable) A (Agreed) R (Realistic) T (Timed). This will include short, medium and long term goals/targets for the volunteer while they are in the Kindergarten. Work tasks will be reviewed weekly with the Supervisor and learning goals/targets will be reviewed fortnightly with the mentor.The results of the project will be that through play, children develop interactive skills such as co-operation, empathy, intuition and the ability to see things from the perspective of the other based on the three-fold image of the human being and it’s development. Physical, intellectual and spiritual development is therefore of utmost importance. A great sense of confidence and security is built up within the young child, preparing for the next stage of their development.We are hopeful that we will have a positive impact on all concerned - children, staff, volunteers, wider community of Thomastown and the volunteer's community when they return home.The impact on the volunteer would include language learning; independent living and management of finances; cultural exchange; community Involvement and greater experience of volunteering; work experience; and many practical skills of cookery, gardening, fundraising etc.The longer term benefit to the volunteer is that they will have broadened their experiences and achieved measurable learning outcomes and personal development that will benefit their career in the future and their future life as a European citizen.