Project information

Supporting the European unification process, we consider it to be important that adolescents and young adults have the opportunity to share their experiences and contribute their personal views; through meeting a foreign language, culture and people from other countries personally this can be realised in the best way. Our intention is to give young people from other countries the opportunity to gain experiences in our local community, to foster their personal development and to facilitate new ideas and interests.

Involvement in social projects surmounts a theoretical cultural experience, as it focuses on the practical learning of language, culture and tolerance. Since we consider ourselves as part of the growing and unifying Europe, we see the hosting of European volunteers as a part of our profile and a significant step towards mediation between European cultures. Being a part of the association „Jugendhilfe und Sozialarbeit e.V.“, which is also working as coordinating organisation, our volunteers are meeting those from other hosting organisations during many events, thus they are not only learning about German culture, but also about the cultures of the other volunteers currently involved in different projects; additionally they are living together and learn to cooperate in a multicultural community.

In the past we have hosted 19 international volunteers since 2003 and with a lot of good experiences looking forward to new volunteers coming.      

The open youth club “Jugendbasis Alpha 1” is located in the centre of Fürstenwalde. It’s open for children and young people in the age of 13 to 21 years and it’s a place for intercultural experiences as well as youth-cultural interests and exchanges.

In addition, education and activation of self-initiative/personal engagement with the young people are important topics, which regard children and young persons in the club.

Open youth and cultural work, leisure education or rather mon-formal youth education are geared to the interests and needs of the young people.

Open youth work is an important area for value orientation. Here exists the chance for the young people of proving social attitude and democratic rules.

The “Jugendbasis Alpha 1” combines the claim of an autonomous recreational activity and a preventive approach.

There are six main working fields:

• leisure activities, which can be offered each day such as billiard and table tennis, discussion possibilities with the co-workers, partially also support with homework

• regular working groups such as fisticuffs (boxing) and football are offered, which can change depending upon interests of the young people annually

• intercultural learning such as workshops and youth meetings/exchanges

• gender-related youth work

• political youth work (topics such as prevention and right-wing extremism)

• youth cultural work (creative working group and dance)

In the “Jugendbasis Alpha 1” work three full-time co-workers, who are supported regularly by trainees.

To the “Jugendbasis Alpha 1” belongs also an internet café, which predominantly realize mediua educational and a "Bicycle Garage".     

The city of Fürstenwalde has about 34 000 residents. The manifold structures of industrial production, trade and service enterprises stretch as far as tires, paint, measurement and test engineering, safety features and equipment, chemical plant engineering and construction as well as synthetics, with more than 5 500 employees.

In Fürstenwalde there is a waterpark, various sport centers with bowling, tennis and inline skating. Not far there is the spa of Bad Saarow with a lot of attractions, hot springs, a huge lake with many kinds of water sports, golf etc. Many cultural places you can find in Fürstenwalde like the “Club in the Park” with concerts and disco or a sociocultural center with theater and music workshops, exhibitions and the public library.

There is an efficient train connection to Berlin (trains run every 30 min. and take about 40 min. into the centre).

   The “Jugendbasis Alpha1” is a place for intercultural experiences as well as youth cultural interests and exchanges. However education and mobilisation of personal engagement are important topics, which concern young persons in the club.

The leisure activities that will offer in “Alpha1” are directed to the interests and needs of young persons.

Main tasks of the volunteers among other things will be the communication with young people in the our club as well as the organisation and execution of leisure time activities.

In the contact with the young people the volunteers become acquainted with the German language and culture. They make themselves familiar with the mentality and the every day life of young people in Germany. The young people like also the co-workers are open-minded towards the volunteers. The volunteers are a part of the co-worker team and will integrate in the service discussions of the project team and the advanced training. They participate in the cultural and meeting days which are organized by the coordinating organisation “JuSeV”. The volunteers are integrated into the roster of the full-time co-workers according to their motivation and possibilities. At the beginning the volunteers receive a briefing into the open youth work.

While their volunteer service they learn

• how to handle young people,

• independent and self-responsible working,

• self-confidence,

• how to live with other volunteers from other cultures.

They receive a view of the organisation and administration of projects of the youth work. The volunteers acquire social and cultural knowledge and abilities..

With the support of the tutor the volunteers learn to plan own projects and to accomplish these.

By observing the educational/pedagogical acting of the full-time co-workers the volunteers get the possibility to reflect their own acting and the educational conception, for example in crises and conflict situations.

The European volunteers and their country-specific origin always offer the possibility of analyzing existing conceptions and expectations for the young people and for the co-workers as well as for the volunteers themselves.

The work time is usually from Monday to Friday from 2 to 8 p.m.

The employment of the volunteers is also possible on weekends if the co-workers need their help by the participation on daily trips, weekend and holiday trips.

One working day of the volunteers can look as follows:

14.00 o’clock – 15.00 o’clock:

Opening the "Jugendbasis Alpha 1" and preparation for the daily youth club enterprise, if necessary sweep and wipe the rooms and place the chairs down

15.00 o’clock:

organisation and execution of the club enterprise

- buy support of small meals and drinks,

- sell of small meals and drinks, cash settlement of the day

- contacting and relationship building at the bar (sale of meals and drinks) and over common activities like table tennis, billiard or something similar with the young people,

16.00 o’clock:

Execution of sport-oriented offers, like table football, billiard or playful activities, organisation of own projects for example dancing group

17.00 o’clock – 18.00 o’clock:

support of activity groups, for example football, boxing, dancing or cooking

19.00 o’clock:

sport-oriented and crative activities and games

19.30 o’clock – 20.00 o’clock:

clean up the rooms used by the club and close the youth club

From time to time, volunteers will also work in the internet café, which is a part of the youth club in the same building. The volunteers have here the tasks of

- the layout of flyer, posters and the homepage,

- support of children and young person with work on the computer,

- cashing and assigning computer workstations

With very good computer knowledge the volunteers can support the co-workers of the internet café in the network administration.

All resulting work is executed by the volunteers with support of the full-time co-workers.        

Date: 2016-03-03; view: 820