European Voluntary Service
Learning by Caring
Youth in Action program
European Voluntary Service
Youth in Action is a program that wants to ensure a legal framework supporting the activities of non formal learning for young people. Some of the program objectives are to promote active citizenship among young people, development of solidarity and promote tolerance, support and mutual understanding and European cooperation between young people.
In this program, one of the most remarkable projects is the European Voluntary Service. The objectives are largely the same: the development of the solidarity, promoting the tolerance, aiming at the strengthening social cohesion in European Union. Such programs as EVS support youth participation at various voluntary activities, in or outside the European Union, giving them the opportunity to express their commitment through voluntary activities. Overall, the key concepts covered by such projects and programs are: young, tolerance, solidarity, commitment, voluntary, non formal learning.
CFL operates with the same notion in various programs, they share the same values, same mission of “shaping the community” through young people, through children.
Thus, Chance for Life, going in the same direction set by the programs mentioned above, is now operating with the work of few volunteers in Learning by Caring program, a project financed by the European Commission through the Youth in Action.
From May, CFL team has 6 new friends who chose to join us and to learn a lot of things, giving also little care to children and teenagers who need support.
Julliette (Belgium), Cristina (Spain), Francesca (Italy), Leo (Italy), Yusuf (Turkey) and Yoana (Bulgaria) are six young people 19-21 years who think that for learning new things and develop your personality, you need many new experiences who can enrich you life.
For 3 moths and a half, the 6 volunteers will have the opportunity that together with the foundation project’s beneficiaries, using a lot of non formal learning activities: games, stories, spectacles, theatre, films, photography, camps, excursions etc, the will have the chance to learn to work with children, to found different elements of psychology, to invent different games, to read Romanian stories, to learn the language, discover the culture. All of these are experiences that they’ll take at the end of this adventure, back to their countries.
For the organization’s children and teenagers the presence of these 6 volunteers brings warmth and affection, friendship and knowledge. Each new game, story, adventure lived together with their new friends will help them discover the world through different eyes and will make them want to discover, step by step, a little bit of what is beyond the life they have day by day, in their families or in the center of investment.
To understand the contribution of the volunteers in the CFL’s activities and generally in Youth in Action program we should know the 6 friends of the foundation.
Ioana
She’s a third year student at Psychology in a university in Varna and she decided to join the CFL team in order to put into practice the theoretical knowledge acquired and to achieve experience in direct contact with children, to share with us her experience, her way of thinking.
CFL experience is also a good opportunity to “become open”, adaptable to new and capable of solving problems, challenges.
Although for us may seem unbelievable, Joana is willing to learn Romanian because she thinks that new horizons are opening this way and can move more easily over barriers imposed by different mentalities, cultures. And how could she learn better the language then by living with the natives, in this case the children.
Read more about her experience
Francesca
She comes from Italy, from a small town near Millan, Turin. She is 21 years old and in June 2007 she graduated the Science High school. Next she started studying theatre at the Academy in Millan, but she discovered that what she likes best is the social theatre, clown and movement therapy for children with or without handicap. So she decided to take a break to devote more to the others and to herself. This year she is travelling a lot, spending few months in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and she held representations in a voluntary assignment for the street people in Bangkok and for children with disabilities.
Now she arrived in Romania and she wants to know better the Gypsy minority and to work with children especially in social theatre.
Read more about her experience
Cristina
She is from Spain and she always thought that Romania is an interesting place for its culture, traditions, history and she always wanted to know the place. Now we can say that her desire fulfilled, she is in Romania for 3 months and a half and she works with children between 8 and 17 years. What she likes best is that the CFL team is more like a family especially for the children who are lucky to learn so many interesting things thanks to the cooperation with the foreign volunteers and all these in a pleasant atmosphere.
Cristina was also impressed by the Hope for Today project where 21 children with AIDS are being cared and she wants to work with them at least once a weak.
Until now, CFL experience impressed Cristina and she’s convinced the she will discovers a lot of others interesting things here in Romania.
Read more about her experience
Leonard
He is also from Italy, from a village near the Alps where he lives since 1994. He was born in Germany in 1987. He attended a Science High School and he decided to travel during a year before going to college. This year he travelled as his colleague Francesca in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and he decided to try the experience offered by the EVS programme.
He is interested in knowing more about Eastern Europe and he wants to work with children. This way, CFL represented a great mixture and a good opportunity to fulfil his desire.
Ecology is another point of interest for Leo and in September he will start studying about Environment’s Science at a university in Turin.
Read more about his experience
Juliette is from Belgium and, although she just finished school and she is only nineteen, she wished to join the team of Change for Life volunteers. The activities that she could achieve with the children seemed very attractive to her and perfectly fit her interests. By performing diverse activities with the children, by improvising and helping them get creative, you can improve their educational and personal development.
Now that she has been in our team for a while, she believes that this experience means more to her that she ever expected.
Yusuf is from the capital city of Turkey, Ankara. He is 22 years old and now he is studying Computer Education and Instructional Technology which is a department that include Psychology, Computer and Education. Since he wanted to implement some projects related with children in the future, he wanted to be a volunteer in such kind of project. That’s why he chose the project of CFL.
Working in Hope For Today project, impressed him a lot and gave him so many different ideas about what will be the topic of his project in the future. Moreover, working in a multicultural organization (CFL), helped him to understand about the culture, social life etc. of different regions of Europe.
After being a volunteer in such kind of a project, now he thinks that he is definitely more experienced, more qualified, more open-minded and at least ten steps forward than those who are not experienced in EVS.
Concluding we can find common points of the 6 volunteers: the pleasure of working with children, the desire of learning, of discovering new cultures, share experience, to overcame barriers imposed by stereotypes or principals related to culture and mentality that sometimes seem impossible to overcome. Briefly: socialising, solidarity, tolerance, cohesion, values promoted by programs such as EVS, Learning by Caring, values the guide CFL too and which are inspired to children so that the carry forward to help to the transformation of the Romanian communities.
Youth in Action program
European Voluntary Service
Youth in Action is a program that wants to ensure a legal framework supporting the activities of non formal learning for young people. Some of the program objectives are to promote active citizenship among young people, development of solidarity and promote tolerance, support and mutual understanding and European cooperation between young people.
In this program, one of the most remarkable projects is the European Voluntary Service. The objectives are largely the same: the development of the solidarity, promoting the tolerance, aiming at the strengthening social cohesion in European Union. Such programs as EVS support youth participation at various voluntary activities, in or outside the European Union, giving them the opportunity to express their commitment through voluntary activities. Overall, the key concepts covered by such projects and programs are: young, tolerance, solidarity, commitment, voluntary, non formal learning.
CFL operates with the same notion in various programs, they share the same values, same mission of “shaping the community” through young people, through children.
Thus, Chance for Life, going in the same direction set by the programs mentioned above, is now operating with the work of few volunteers in Learning by Caring program, a project financed by the European Commission through the Youth in Action.
From May, CFL team has 6 new friends who chose to join us and to learn a lot of things, giving also little care to children and teenagers who need support.
Julliette (Belgium), Cristina (Spain), Francesca (Italy), Leo (Italy), Yusuf (Turkey) and Yoana (Bulgaria) are six young people 19-21 years who think that for learning new things and develop your personality, you need many new experiences who can enrich you life.
For 3 moths and a half, the 6 volunteers will have the opportunity that together with the foundation project’s beneficiaries, using a lot of non formal learning activities: games, stories, spectacles, theatre, films, photography, camps, excursions etc, the will have the chance to learn to work with children, to found different elements of psychology, to invent different games, to read Romanian stories, to learn the language, discover the culture. All of these are experiences that they’ll take at the end of this adventure, back to their countries.
For the organization’s children and teenagers the presence of these 6 volunteers brings warmth and affection, friendship and knowledge. Each new game, story, adventure lived together with their new friends will help them discover the world through different eyes and will make them want to discover, step by step, a little bit of what is beyond the life they have day by day, in their families or in the center of investment.
To understand the contribution of the volunteers in the CFL’s activities and generally in Youth in Action program we should know the 6 friends of the foundation.
Ioana
She’s a third year student at Psychology in a university in Varna and she decided to join the CFL team in order to put into practice the theoretical knowledge acquired and to achieve experience in direct contact with children, to share with us her experience, her way of thinking.
CFL experience is also a good opportunity to “become open”, adaptable to new and capable of solving problems, challenges.
Although for us may seem unbelievable, Joana is willing to learn Romanian because she thinks that new horizons are opening this way and can move more easily over barriers imposed by different mentalities, cultures. And how could she learn better the language then by living with the natives, in this case the children.
Read more about her experience
Francesca
She comes from Italy, from a small town near Millan, Turin. She is 21 years old and in June 2007 she graduated the Science High school. Next she started studying theatre at the Academy in Millan, but she discovered that what she likes best is the social theatre, clown and movement therapy for children with or without handicap. So she decided to take a break to devote more to the others and to herself. This year she is travelling a lot, spending few months in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and she held representations in a voluntary assignment for the street people in Bangkok and for children with disabilities.
Now she arrived in Romania and she wants to know better the Gypsy minority and to work with children especially in social theatre.
Read more about her experience
Cristina
She is from Spain and she always thought that Romania is an interesting place for its culture, traditions, history and she always wanted to know the place. Now we can say that her desire fulfilled, she is in Romania for 3 months and a half and she works with children between 8 and 17 years. What she likes best is that the CFL team is more like a family especially for the children who are lucky to learn so many interesting things thanks to the cooperation with the foreign volunteers and all these in a pleasant atmosphere.
Cristina was also impressed by the Hope for Today project where 21 children with AIDS are being cared and she wants to work with them at least once a weak.
Until now, CFL experience impressed Cristina and she’s convinced the she will discovers a lot of others interesting things here in Romania.
Read more about her experience
Leonard
He is also from Italy, from a village near the Alps where he lives since 1994. He was born in Germany in 1987. He attended a Science High School and he decided to travel during a year before going to college. This year he travelled as his colleague Francesca in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and he decided to try the experience offered by the EVS programme.
He is interested in knowing more about Eastern Europe and he wants to work with children. This way, CFL represented a great mixture and a good opportunity to fulfil his desire.
Ecology is another point of interest for Leo and in September he will start studying about Environment’s Science at a university in Turin.
Read more about his experience
Juliette is from Belgium and, although she just finished school and she is only nineteen, she wished to join the team of Change for Life volunteers. The activities that she could achieve with the children seemed very attractive to her and perfectly fit her interests. By performing diverse activities with the children, by improvising and helping them get creative, you can improve their educational and personal development.
Now that she has been in our team for a while, she believes that this experience means more to her that she ever expected.
Yusuf is from the capital city of Turkey, Ankara. He is 22 years old and now he is studying Computer Education and Instructional Technology which is a department that include Psychology, Computer and Education. Since he wanted to implement some projects related with children in the future, he wanted to be a volunteer in such kind of project. That’s why he chose the project of CFL.
Working in Hope For Today project, impressed him a lot and gave him so many different ideas about what will be the topic of his project in the future. Moreover, working in a multicultural organization (CFL), helped him to understand about the culture, social life etc. of different regions of Europe.
After being a volunteer in such kind of a project, now he thinks that he is definitely more experienced, more qualified, more open-minded and at least ten steps forward than those who are not experienced in EVS.
Concluding we can find common points of the 6 volunteers: the pleasure of working with children, the desire of learning, of discovering new cultures, share experience, to overcame barriers imposed by stereotypes or principals related to culture and mentality that sometimes seem impossible to overcome. Briefly: socialising, solidarity, tolerance, cohesion, values promoted by programs such as EVS, Learning by Caring, values the guide CFL too and which are inspired to children so that the carry forward to help to the transformation of the Romanian communities.
Here is a presentation about volunteering in Romania created by the voluteers.