Introduction

Egyesek Youth Association was founded in 1997 with the aim to motivate, empower and support teenagers and young adults in their non-formal personal and community development both in Hungarian and international context. To achieve their aim they also undertook the task to provide volunteer leaders and professional peer-educators with the appropriate background and with opprotunities to improve their skills which help them in working together with youngsters successfully. Among the members of Egyesek we can find volunteers, youth workers and trainers.

Egyesek took up the challenge of developing certain sense of responsibility in young people showing them the way how to take control over their everydays, how to have positive effects on their environment and how to play an active role in their own lives.

One of the key concepts behind their work is "synergy"; Egyesek belives that if two or more people are working together they are able to produce a result which independently would be unobtainable. In other words people working together are more effective and successful than one by one and they are able to create something that as a whole is a lot more than simply putting together the parts.

Proposed activities for volunteers

To motivate teenagers to take responsibility for the way how they spend their freetime and to inspire them to consider themselves as active parts of a community on which they can have a meaningful effect, Egyesek started a student-programme under the name KEKSZ. KEKSZ in parctice takes place in different high-schools situated in Budapest. Within the frameworks of it students are encouraged to take part actively in different social activities and after-school projects, to volunteer and carry out own projects with the help of KEKSZ coordinators. The most active students get the opportunity to join KEKSZ as coordinators, to take part in trainigs, conferences and students exchanges both on home and international levels. Furthermore, the most active classes get the possbility to use the school bus at the end of the year according to their own needs and they win a day out-of-school which day can use whenever they want.

Students taking part in the propgramme have to provide minimum ten-hour service (e.g. library assistance, coaching), do minimum ten-hour creative activity (e.g. improving the website of the school, writing articles to the school magazine) and take ten-hour other kind of "effort" (e.g. doing sport, hiking).

EVS volunteers task is principally to assist and take part actively in running KEKSZ. Beisdes administrative work, it also means that volunteers are expected to help with creating possibilities for students to spend their service, to do creative activities and take the ten-hour "extra effort" by organizing programs for them such as holding English classes, creating "EU opporunities spots", doing different workshops according to their own skills and other free-time activities (e.g. hiking). Volunteers are working in pairs in the schools and they are constantly supported by their tutors in the schools. As far as working hours are concerned voluneers will work 10-15 hours a week. For the rest of the time, volunteers can choose from more options: they can work on their own projects; they can join alraedy existing projects at Egyesek; or they can create further opportunities for intercultural learning at thehigh-schools involved in KEKSZ.

Volunteers will be accomodated in flats shared by each other in the city center, more precisely in the 13th district, where the office of Egyesek is also situated. Taking personal needs into consideration, in the flats each of the volunteer has an own private room. Concerning food, breaffast and lunch are provided at the high-scool canteens in the weekdays. Besides, volunteers get money to solve evening and weekend meal on their own. Travel pass and the possibility to learn Hungarian are also offered for every volunteer.

Useful Link

http://ec.europa.eu/youth/evs/aod/hei_form_en.cfm?EID=70000148359