Noored Ühiskonna Heaks (NYH) is promoting a call for volunteer for an European Solidarity Corps placement called “United in Solidarity” for 12 months, which will take place from 1st October 2021 to 30th September 2022 in Lisbon, Portugal.
Coordinating Organization: ProAtlântico – Associação Juvenil
Hosting Organization: Casa Pia de Lisboa – CED Santa Clara
Description
Casa Pia de Lisboa (CPL) is a Public Institute under the tutelage of Ministry of Labour and Social Solidarity. The mission of CPL is to promote the rights and protection of children and young people, especially those who are in danger or at risk of exclusion, to ensure their full development, through acceptance, education, training and social and professional integration.
This project will take place at CED Santa Catarina.
This project will take place in Centro de Educação e Desenvolvimento (CED) Santa Clara that is composed by a net of 6 foster homes located in Sintra, Cascais and Oeiras.
The main aims of the foster homes are:
– protection of children/young people from dangerous family situations;
– provision of basic living conditions, affection and safe environment;
– supply psychological care;
– make the diagnosis taking in consideration different issues (ex: health, social, educational, psychological, emotional, physical needs)
– definition of a Care Plan (Life Project) of each child/young person;
– privilege the child/young person integration, according to the community resources (attend to school, participation in sports, leisure, cultural and scouts activities);
– prepare the children/young people to the future: return to the family, adoption, longer stay in the hosting organisation or in other foster home;
Each foster home offers protection in maximum to 14 children and young people, under 18 years old that were victims of maltreatments inflicted by their families (ex: negligence; physical, emotional and sexual abuses; moral-legal/educational maltreatments; drug/alcohol addiction).
Profile of the volunteer:
The project requires that the volunteers must be very human, self-motivated, proactive, creative, with handwork skills, with self-initiative, willing to take on new challenges, very flexible and ready to help in different tasks of the children/young people education and life.
A high motivation to work with children and young people and special interest on music, dance, theatre, sports, cooking, computers, handicrafts, gardening, history, can be an added value, since these areas their fields of interest and will be the way to reach their attention. So, is expected the volunteers have a positive attitude, patience and good listening capacity.
The volunteers must be open minded and tolerant to work with people with fewer opportunities with different backgrounds and affected by different problems (ex: education difficulties, coming from broken families/orphans, young people with mental illnesses, with low economic resources, high cultural differences, etc.).
Therefore is important to have good adaption to different realities and ready to live with different conditions and environments they are used to in their original country.
The volunteers should have motivation to help youngsters with fewer opportunities to discover special skills to increase their chances to be employed. The volunteers might have interest to run workshops to unemployed young people about the benefits of participation in non-formal projects from Erasmus + Program in order to improve their skills and help them to integrate the labor market. The volunteer has to be between 18 and 30 years, with: good integration capability; willingness to share experiences and cultural habits.
Tasks of the volunteer
The role of the volunteers will be to help the team of the receiving organization to create a home and safe environment, where the children feel protected and live in a healthy way. Therefore, the volunteers have to give a lot of care and transmit a feeling of confidence in their relation with the children.
This can be achieved by creating a good relationship with the children and earning their trust. Sometimes the children might show verbal or physic aggressive attitudes towards adults around them and have to be comprehended and at the same time everybody have to teach them rules, so they can learn values of respect, love, tolerance, etc.
Is expected the volunteers get to know all the children’s daily routine: wake up, going to school, lunch time, but mostly back from school, playing time, dinner time, go to sleep and also during sleeping time, so sometimes work in shifts can occur. Is also expected the volunteers help in different fields of the working of the foster home.
If the children speak about their bad life experiences, is expected the volunteers make them understand they are in a safe environment, but mostly show a positive attitude and don’t encourage them to continue speaking, because this must be done by the expert staff. All small details about the children are important to be shared with the team of the hosting organization and the volunteers will be asked to register this information in a diary.
Below are proposals of activities that have to be adapted according to each volunteer profile:
– Animate and implement leisure time activities (ex: sports, music, singing, dance, theatre, handicrafts, watching movies, thematic conversations, etc.)
– Accompany children in outside activities of the foster home (ex: go to the doctor, take children to/from school/playground/cultural places, etc.)
– Motivate children/youngsters to study (ex: English language tutoring, Maths …) and to complete their objectives (ex: with creative methods like games,
music, quiz, etc.) and assist them in computers (ex: internet search, Word, Excel, Power point, etc.)
– Propose and implement specific activities related to the period of the holidays/ weekends (ex: Christmas theatre play, build Carnival masks, games with Easter eggs, Summer camps, birthdays, etc.)
– Help with the meals
– Help with events of fundraising (fairs, concerts, etc)
– Help children and youngsters to organize the house and the rooms
– Help to improve the facilities of the house
– Organisation of offers from the community
Volunteers are also invited to give ideas about activities they want to promote with the customers, like make presentation of their country of origin through a gastronomic activity, musical, or others, based on their own experience or sensitivity.
The activities will be done always under the supervision of the team from the institution.
The volunteers also have the chance to implement a personal project with a financial support from ProAtlântico.
Dissemination
Each month, the volunteer must write a small article about his/her experience and add some photos to be used in social media to promote this kind of projects.
Timetable
The volunteers will collaborate 35 hours per week during 5 days a week (30 hours of activities + 5 hours for trainings, language support, mentorship meetings, reports, etc.). Although, the volunteers might work different hours per day.
The schedule will be defined by the hosting organization on arrival of the volunteer and it can change according to the activities.
The volunteers will have 2 consecutive free days each week that can vary from week to week according to the needs of the hosting organization. However, when the hosting organization has activities on volunteer’s free days and the volunteers are asked to work, they might have to choose another free day, since the collaboration of the volunteers is important.
The volunteers have the right to take the Portuguese National official holidays as free days, when they match with working days. They can’t use their own national holiday as a free day, unless they use a vacation day.
It is not possible to work more hours in each day to have 3 days free each week. It is needed to work 5 days each week.
The volunteers have the right to take the Portuguese National official holidays as free days, when they match with working days.
The volunteers will have 2 days of holidays per month for the duration of the project, to be taken in agreement between the volunteers and the team. The volunteers can join the holidays or take them by month. The volunteers must discuss with the project supervisor from the hosting organization the dates of holidays at least one month before.
TRAVEL
The volunteer is entitled to one return travel ticket between the sending and the receiving country. The sending organization will help the volunteer to purchase tickets. If the cost of the ticket is more expensive than the amount of money approved, the volunteer will be responsible to cover the difference. An itinerary must be sent to ProAtlântico to get an approval before the ticket is bought.
Volunteers from Estonia: 530,00 euros for both ways
FOOD
ProAtlântico – Associação Juvenil will provide 5€ per day to cover costs of food and extra expenses (ex: cleaning materials, …) during non-working time. The volunteer can use the food money to buy own food, cook in the apartment, eat in a restaurant, etc.).
During working time the receiving organization provides a suitable meal in the organization’s facilities, which is based on a Mediterranean diet. It is important to refer that this project doesn’t provide Vegan meals or Halal food.
It is not possible for the volunteer to get money instead of the food provided during the working time.
ACCOMMODATION
ProAtlântico provides free accommodation in an apartment, University residence, hostel, hosting family or at Casa Europa, in double bedroom with fully equipped kitchen, toilet and living room.
The costs with electricity, water, gas, TV and Internet are covered by the project. The volunteers will have towels and bed clothes for the entire period of the project.
It is not possible to get a single room. The rooms are always shared with another volunteer of the same gender.
It is not possible for the volunteer to find his own accommodation and get money for it.
Host guests and animals and Couch Surfing is not allowed in the accommodation provided by ProAtlântico.
ProAtlântico can help you to find a cheap place for accommodation for your friends or relatives.
LOCAL TRANSPORTS
A monthly local transport allowance is provided to cover at least the costs between the accommodation and project place. The volunteer must ask for receipt and keep it safe to give to the receiving organization team to be reimbursed.
POCKET MONEY
The volunteer will receive a pocket money for personal expenses of 5,00€ per day.
LINGUISTIC SUPPORT
ProAtlântico guarantees that the volunteer will have online linguistic through the platform OLS.
Before the activity start, the volunteer is asked to make an online test. A new test will be made in the end of the activity to assess the level of learning of Portuguese language.
Learning Portuguese language will depend much of the volunteers work at home and in their daily contact with the local community.
Learning Portuguese language will depend much of the volunteers work at home and in their daily contact with the local community.
All the interested people should fill send the CV in English to marco@nyh.ee
Application deadline: 30th May 2021
For further questions contact marco@nyh.ee
