European Voluntary Service
The European Voluntary Service (official Website) is a service, established by the European Commision on 20 July 1998.
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Objective
As stated on this page, the objective of EVS is:
To help young Europeans become more mobile, and hence more active citizens, provide them with a formative experience in several areas of activity and encourage them to make an active contribution to building Europe and to co-operation between the Community and non-member countries by taking part in transnational activities of benefit to the community.
Why EVS?
EVS pays for
- travel Expanses of the Volunteer if he chooses the cheapest option to get to the destination
- insurance of the Volunteer
- small alowance
Work on BV
- Sustainability of BV structure. The volunteer should ensure the routine works of BV: documenting, caring about discussion, making support...
The volunteer could make any routine volunteer work, but it shouldnt be his role: it's clear that the volunteer must have a main mission, which cant be administrative work.
- work on communication of the project: as local promotion, or globally into the communication team.
Since volunteers may not always be in the same place (read further), each time there is a volunteer in a place it's an oportunity to promote a lot BW in that place
- Develop new thematic projects, in function of his skills - and I think that this is the biggest dimension of such a project. Because they will have different skills, because they will have lots of time, the volunteers could consecrate for example 6 monthes for a special mission. Just mentionning any example: developping BW in the direction of social groups, like disfavorized youngs. Getting some youngs to know BW so they can discover new horizons of like.... Promoting BW in Africa... Integrating old people into BW...
- Organizing of Ga's (General Assembly), Meetings or Collectives.
Who could be a Volunteer
People from all over the world. The EVS Project consists of three parts. The Volunteer, a sending organisation and a host organization. One of the countries involved in an EVS project must be an EU Member State. As we are a French organisation this isn t a problem at all.
Because the EVS pays one Return ticket 100 % it would be a great opportunity to get people from other continents involved into BV/BW.
Difficulties of that project
First, to receive EVS volunteers we need to be recognized as "receiving association", which imply first lots of papers, and that administration recognize that we are able to receive volunteers, and that our work is of general interest.
Tutor
The biggest problem is about the "tutor". The volunteer can work alone, but he should have a tutor. The tutor have 4 responsibilities:
- when the volunteer arrives, helping him with organizing his life at the place (shouldnt be a problem considering the people we are)
- helping the volunteer with any problem he has (who knows... health problem, whatever...)
- explaining the volunteer everything he should know for his work (formation, at the beginning)
- following the volunteer all along his work, and helping him. This should imply regular meetings.
Of course, our organization allows that the whole BV people work with our volunteer through the net, but a local regular contact is important and required.
This is, in my mind, the biggest difficulty for us: providing the tutor! The tutor should definitely be an active BV member, if possible member of the BoD but maybe not. The tutor would have a consequent responsibility, involving the responsibility of BV, so there's no possibility that he doesnt assume it for the whole time of his mission (between 2 and 12 months).
Material Commitment
- having available a room where it's possible to work, not permanent but various times per week. Working conditions (not a bed)
- ensuring medium term staying. Doesnt mean to stay whole life, but not planing to move in 2 months... In another way, the headquarter could move with you.
Financial
BV as a host organisation has to cover:
- food
Food might be calculated by 8 € a day? In the German "Zivildienst its 7,20 € a day.
- language course
Language course maybe provided by the mentor if neccessary.
- housing expenses
I think we could still manage this. Probably we can t offer EVS in fancy (and expensive) Destinations like Paris or London but still Berlin (or surroundings) might be possible because Housing costs are probably the half then in Paris / London. If someone has a house where he might host people for a year the housing expanses are 0.
- local transport
Local transportation might be ~ 30 to 50 € per month - depending on the area.
Forum Discussion
This whole articel is based on the Forum Discussion (restricted to BeVolunteer Members) http://www.bevolunteer.org/forum/index.php?topic=672.0
