Our project is taking place in the Podlaskie region of Poland, with the coordinating and planning centre in Bialystok, in theFoundation of Education and Creativity. This project is the continuation of the project ”EVS for Refugees”, run from November2012 to August 2013 and currently from February2014 until November 2014. With this application, we want to invite three volunteers to continue the activity. Their activity will last 9 months, i.e. 270 days. The participating countries, apart from Poland, will be Spain, France and Italy. Together with the coordinating and hosting organization, there will be 5 organizations involved. EVS activity will be held in two places: the reception centre for refugees in Czerwony Bór and the coordinator’s headquarters in Bialystok. The volunteers will work in the kindergarten for refugees’ children, they will organize extra classes for refugee teenagers and adults. The classes will be compatible with the volunteers’ hobbies and qualifications and will be aimed at organizing free time for children, teenagers and adults. The volunteers will also visit high schools, junior high schools and primary schools throughout the region of podlaskie, teaching lessons about human rights, stereotypes and refugees, aiming at raising the society’s awareness of the refugee issue. They will also design their own activities to reach the aim of the project and help prepare integration events. Informal learning methods, like discussion, presentation, exchange of ideas, opinions, training combined with discussion of the issue, tandem learning, learning by doing, individual and group initiatives, will be dominating throughout the project. The effect of the project will be the development of intercultural dialogue, raising awareness of the refugee issue among the participants and recipients of the project, increasing the level of knowledge and competence of both participants and recipients. Additional effect will be increasing the visibility of the ERASMUS+ Programme in the region.

EVS group project -Cartagena, finding our Youth Space- is part of the cultural intervention program aimed at promoting youth Cartagena Youth Department and coordinates the Socio-Cultural Association maker.It is a group EVS project which has involved two European volunteers from Germany and France, the duration of the EVS Activity has been nine months from October 1, 2014 to July 1, 2015.The main issues have been addressed in this project are Youth (participation, youth work and youth policy), the information technology and communication and teaching / learning foreign languages, cross all issues that have been present in the scheduled activities.This program aims to promote a social space for cultural exchanges and create a European dimension at all levels, working democratic values, youth participation in our society, European citizenship, etc. are all aspects which help the development of a European consciousness.The involvement of volunteers has taken place also in social local neighborhoods where activities aimed at preventing social exclusion are made, that is avoiding as far as possible discrimination on socio-economic, cultural, religious, etc. .This project is basically composed of two main activities, which are framed in four different programs: Language Exchange, InfoViaje, Botika Book and Implica2. These programs are included in the area of ​​socio-cultural, non-formal education, multilingualism, participation and youth work.The working methods have been the characteristic of the non-formal education, work techniques and activities that promote youth participation and revitalize the social fabric, social and cultural activities, etc.There has been a local impact in the community where Cartagena has generated exchange and intercultural dialogue between and with young people, motivating the knowledge, respect and closeness to other cultures.Among the possible benefits we include the added value and higher quality operation of the programs that frame the activities of volunteers and the possibility of developing other projects of international mobility in the Erasmus + -Youth in Action Programme.

European Voluntary Service in social facilities in Berlin is a project of the Internationale Jugendgemeinschaftsdienste (ijgd), which is the coordinating and supporting voluntary organisation in the EVS. A group of all together 17 volunteers (this application includes 11 of them) from all over Europe are active in hosting NGOs who work in the social field. The focus of the engagment is work with children, refugee aid, social work and homeless care. The EVS-projectpartners in Berlin are non-profit organistions: Kindergartens, churches, a facility for sociatherapie, day-cares, a free school, a refugee home, a circus for children. The acitivities are: work with children, social work, refugee aid and homeless care. Most of the facilities are located in districts with social problems (Neukölln, Kreuzberg, Moabit).The aim is to improve the living conditions of the local people and to make a contribution to intercultural understanding, European awareness, against discrimination and social exclusion. The volunteers are invited bring in their cultural background and interests into the project. They experience the everyday life and the role of smaller local social NGOs in civil society in Berlin. The European volunteers live together and independently in shared flats and will be supported by ijgd throughout the year.ijgd is contact point and offers shared activities, networking, workshops, help and support to the volunteers.

Leonard Cheshire Disability is the UK’s leading charity supporting people with disability. Leonard Cheshire Disability has grown to have over 200 services throughout the UK over 65 years. We support over 21,000 disabled people in the UK, providing innovative services that give disabled people the opportunity to live a life without barriers. We believe that disabled people should have the freedom to live their lives the way they choose - with the opportunity and support to live independently, to contribute economically, and to participate fully in society. The needs and aspirations of disabled people are at the heart of what we do. Our members of staff provide the necessary care and assistance to enable residents to live as independent and full a life as possible. However, it is the volunteer who can give extra time and attention to the residents, encouraging and supporting disabled people to access local facilities and fulfilling personal goals. Through volunteering, we are able to offer more support to residents, and thereby move closer to our organsiational goal.The overall aim of this project is to empower and enable disabled people to access social, leisure and employment activities. This is achieved through the following objectives:1. To introduce new activities to the activities programme2. To support residents with the activities they wish to do inside and outside the care home3. To support residents in fulfilling personal long-term goals4. To support fundraising efforts to raise funds that will support the above mentioned aim5. To raise disability awareness for the volunteers and in the local communityThe EVS volunteers supported our staff teams in providing an active and stimulating environment for our residents. Our volunteers were actively involved in shaping their EVS experiences by developing the activities plan with residents and staff. Volunteers brought their own ideas, skills and passions to share with residents. As a result, the role was varied depending on their own skills and interests, and the needs of residents and the activities they like to engage in. Our residents make sure their home has a lively atmosphere with activities such art and craft workshops, quizzes, IT workshops, music group, cooking and gardening. The care homes also organised special events such as fundraisers, holiday celebrations, cultural evenings or sports nights. Volunteers also supported on social outings, day trips and educational events such as attending college classes. Hence the delivery of activities was influenced by the skills and motivation of our volunteers to design a creative and fun activity programme.The project was carried out by six volunteers, placed in three services around the UK, five females and one male from four different European countries.The main activities of the project were:- Assisting residents in the community- Individual support to residents- Escorting residents on trips- Supporting residents with physio-therapy EVS volunteers have lasting impact on many different aspects of our service users’ lives. Volunteers enabled disabled people to be more independent, enjoyed a greater choice of activities and form a healthy social relationship. The local community learn more about other cultures and disability. With support from EVS volunteers we were able to host more local social events that spread the EVS program and disability issues, as well as create a warm and welcoming environment within our care homes. An active and varied social life for our residents is often key to their health, happiness and quality of life. Thus the impact of the EVS project at addresses a very basic human need of developing real and meaningful relationships, which is a fantastic result. The expected impact of project on residents is the diversity of activities and enhanced individual support encouraged residents to set new goals and be more open to try new things and in particular to contribute more to the local community. This improves residents' confidence which we leads to long term benefits of getting residents to do things like volunteering, organising events, talking about disability issues in the local community and being more involved in decisions made locally and nationally in regards to the care sector and disability issues.The expected impact of the project for volunteers is to become ambassadors for disability issues. It is expected that the participants will continue to promote disability rights and work towards a society that values disabled and non-disabled people equally. In addition, participants will have improved their key competences, social skills through working and communicating with diverse people and gaining a better understanding and solidarity with people who face barriers to participate in society. The placement provided volunteers with the opportunity to gain insight into the social services sector, which may help them decide on future career.

"his coordinated EVS project ""Moove and Change!"" had for goal to send 8 young people in 3 different hosting projects for long term missions in order to give them the opportunity for to participate in an EVS project in a reassuring and well structured context with partners of good quality. These missions will allow the volunteers to develop a consciosness of solidarity and engagement in different topics and that regard different environments. They will be enabled to bring their energy, ideas and creativity to elderly with organizing free time activities for them, protecting the environment, develop journalism ideas connected to media, but also social activities that will correspond to the needs that the young people have noted for them to be useful. They will also be able to develop a european consciousness - to become conscientious that elsewghere the solutions for the same problems are different despite the fact that the same problems are present in more than one european countries. We would also like to coordinate this EVS project with two partners from the program countries - Spain, Italy and Greece. -The association GEPEC, in Spain (that works with protection of nature and information about environmental issues) - long term volunteer. Associacio de Voluntaris del Tarragones (AVT), Residencia « La Merce» in Spain (Residence for elderly people) - hosting long term volunteers. Praxis, Greece (Association that supportes youth engagement through media) hosting four long term volunteer. Suport, (a residence for disabled adults) in Spain hosting one long-term volunteer. Residencia Casa Di Riposo, in Itay (Residence for elderly people) - hosting long term volunteer. The goal is to facilitate the access of young people for these actions, more specifically, one of the most important elements of the Erasmus + program in proposing long term missions (around 7 mois) of volunteering in order to answer to the needs of the young people who wants to go abraod for a medium period.This coordinated project will consolidate our partnership with certain hosting stuctures in Europe, hoping to develop a continuous quality of the projects of sending and hosting volunteers and in guaranteeing good access to young people that might be concerned by the EVS program. We would like to send our volunteers to projects of good quality with partners that share our same vision of what EVS is, regarding learning processes and follow up procedures, mainly for our volunteers in the social domain and environmental protection. Our devotion to follow up for our volunteers is based on the knowledge of volunteers, their confidence that is certaiinly established between us as a structure and the engagement that is a connecting link through all the steps of the project."