EVS activity in Slovakia

KERIC is

• non-profit non-governmental organisation

• founded in 2003

• working mainly with children and youth aged 4-30 as well as adults from the Kysuce region

• activities with an extra added international dimension

• our projects involve some sort of education and social/care work.

• our projects include things like working in education in the primary and secundary schools, lead conversation courses in foreign languages for children and young people, caring for elderly people in a senior houses or training to become an activity leader at an summer camps for the children

• all these projects involve working directly with people.

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LOCATION: Čadca and region Kysuce

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AIMS OF THE PROJECT

• The aim is to motivate children to speak English, experience the cul-ture of the volunteer and have fun while speaking English.

• The aim of the cooperation is to add an international dimension to the classes and to the school

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VOLUNTEER’S TASKS

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Communication English courses for children: (2 – 6 hours a week)
The aim of the courses is to motivate children to speak English, experience the culture of the volunteer and have fun while speaking English. The volunteers does not have to be “perfect” at English. His/her role in the lessons is to be the motivation for the kids to try to speak a foreign language. The age of the children is generally 7 to 14. We also have one class of children aged 5-7. The lessons are prepared and run together with a young Slovak teacher.
Communication courses for teenagers/adults in own language of the volunteer: (2 – 6 hours a week)
The aim of the courses is to let the students experience the culture, country and the language of the volunteer. The volunteer uses methods of non-formal educa-tion, can make cultural presentations and organise the lessons in a very informal way. The classes are prepared with the support of KERIC staff, but run inde-pendently.
Cooperation with local elementary schools: (6 to 8 hours a week)
The volunteer cooperates with one or two schools in Cadca or nearby villages. The aim of the cooperation is to add an international dimension to the classes and to the school as such. The volunteer helps different teachers in the school during their lessons, using non-formal education. It can be language lessons but can also be sports, art, IT, science, math, etc. The volunteers does games, crea-tive activities with the students or supports the teacher anyway needed. In some classes, the volunteer might help weaker students or students with disabilities. The volunteer is motivated to get involved in life of the school as such – to take part in school trips, special events of the school, sports tournaments, etc.
Office work (2 to 6 hours a week)
Once a week, the volunteer helps in running the KERIC office, and organisation as such. This task involves every day office tasks, paper work, preparing leaflets about our activities, updating the KERIC website and facebook, cleaning and tak-ing care of the facilities in KERIC, or other little jobs depending on the needs of the organisation
Regular KERIC team meetings and mentor meetings (2 hours a week)
Meetings to evaluate activities, plan the next steps and to discuss anything im-portant for a smooth running of the EVS project.
Non-teaching activities - workshops, sports and creative activities (1 to 8 hours a week)
For the first weeks, the volunteer will be actively involved mainly in teaching. Later on during the project, the volunteer might want to balance the education activities and get involved in creative, sport or social work activities. The ideas of the activities and schedule will be discussed with each volunteer individually, support will be offered by KERIC to develop these activities. Volunteer’s intiative is required in case of these activities. The volunteers can also take part in lan-guage course upon their own choice.
Preparation for classes (4 – 12 hours a week)
The volunteer will prepare his/her activities alone or with the methodological and logistical support of the KERIC stafff. Equipment, reference books and special training are provided by KERIC as well as the local schools, that the volunteer cooperates with.

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VOLUNTEER’S REQUIRE-MENTS

The possibility is open to any young aged 18 to 30, motivated for the project. Sending organisation will have information meetings for the interested candi-dates. Those that are interested can apply according to transparent criteria and selection deadline. In pre-selection 2 to 5 candidates will be selected by the pro-ject coordinator, followed by a personal /skype interview with the project coordi-nator and possibly the host organisation.
In this project, the volunteer can learn how to run non-formal education activities for children and youth, as well as adults, and to develop teaching and organisa-tional skills. The volunteer does not need to be a professional teacher. Motivation to work in this field is more important than experience or educational back-ground. KERIC staff offers constant methodological and logistical support during the whole project.

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ACCOMODATION:

The best sentence to describe this experience in general is "Living together", you share the flat with people from different parts of the world so as you can imagine it is a "life experience" with everything that this could mean... good and bad moments...
It helps to increase your tolerance and learning from each other. Something important to try to understand another ´s person view is listening, also speaking honestly about how you feel in relation with some situation or episode can help "to clear the water" and start again from a better point. Respect other people´s space, objects, religion and habits or at least try and you will be happy to live together during your EVS.

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