EVS vacancy at Horas de Sonho (Lisbon, Portugal)

Associação Spin, acting as the coordinating organization, is currently looking for two volunteers for the February, 1st deadline.

Host: Cooperativa Horas de Sonho (2013-PT-5)
Coordinator: Associação Spin  (2012-PT-21)
Project name: Let´s do it!
Activity start date: 1st June 2013
Activity end date: 31st May 2014
Vacancies: 2
Application deadline: 22nd January 2013
Application consists of: CV and project-specific motivation letter
Application sent to: sve.horassonho@gmail.com

“Horas de Sonho” is a social solidarity Cooperative working in the field of children’s attendance. The organization is settled nowadays in Carnide where the administrative office and almost all Departments are based, however, their area of work includes all the Lisbon city. The organization´s mission is to provide support to families especially through children’s social babysitting. The target group are mainly children aged 2-4. You can watch videos (in Portuguese) about Horas de Sonho here and here.

Generally, the volunteers will: 

• provide information about Horas de Sonhos’s projects to local people and new associates; 
• search and collect information as well as answer to requests for information through other channels of communication such as website, blog, facebook and others; 
• collaborate in updating the Association’s website with contents; 
• give support to daily management and simple administrative procedures of Horas de Sonho’s projects, both indoors and outdoors; 
• one of the volunteers will help out primarily at the Community Center and the other at the Community Store. 

For more information on the tasks proposed to the volunteers, please have a look at the full call for participants.

We are looking for volunteers aged 20-30, open minded, eager to learn about new cultures and lifestyles, as well as to participate in the proposed project activities with the local community. It is not required to have any particular degree of formal education, but to have positive and proactive attitude, show tolerance, flexibility, motivation and enthusiasm. In this project, age and maturity are important due to direct work with children and families in the neighborhood. We encourage applications especially from youngsters who already have some experience in working with children and are willing to know more in depth the work developed with families from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Special remarks (please read carefully):

• read the full call for participants
• we only accept complete applications that contain all the required documents
• the subject of your application e-mail should be "Community Center" or "Community Store" (depending on which one you would prefer to help out at)
• add the contact details of your Sending Organization to your e-mail
• we can´t consider applications sent after the deadline
• send your application to sve.horassonho@gmail.com, applications sent through other communication channels (Facebook, Youthnetworks, etc.) will not be considered
• due to the high number of candidates, we are only able to contact the short-listed candidates (in order to invite them for a brief Skype interview)
• all the other candidates will be informed about the selection results by January, 26th through our blog.

EVS vacancy at Mãos do Mundo (Lisbon, Portugal)

Associação Spin, acting as the coordinating organization, is currently looking for three volunteers for the February, 1st deadline.

Host: Associação Mãos do Mundo (2013-PT-3)
Coordinator: Associação Spin  (2012-PT-21)
Project name: Let´s do it!
Activity start date: 1st June 2013
Activity end date: 31st May 2014
Vacancies: 3
Application deadline: 22nd January 2013
Application consists of: CV and project-specific motivation letter
Application sent to: sve.maosdomundo@gmail.com

“Mãos do Mundo” (Hands of the World) is a Youth Association dedicated to sociocultural animation and psycho-social support. They are committed to supporting others in building up a network of affection and mutual support that will make it possible to break barriers and face life obstacles. The organization´s main aims are to promote and provide social and cultural animation and psycho-social support for the community of Carnide (a neighborhood of Lisbon).

As Mãos do Mundo has three different target groups and works with several different projects, we have divided the tasks and activities of the volunteers in three different categories, namely:

1. “1 Gesture… 100 Missions” project
2. Music project “Children and Juvenile Choir”
3. Communication and Image of Mãos do Mundo

For the description of the tasks proposed to the volunteers, please read the full call for participants. 

We are looking for young motivated volunteers aged 18-30, open minded, eager to learn about new cultures and lifestyles, as well as to participate in the project activities in the local community. It is not required to have any particular degree of formal education, but to have positive and proactive attitude, show tolerance, flexibility, motivation and enthusiasm. In this project, the capacity to work in a team will be highly appreciated (both within the hosting organization and with the local partners in Carnide). We encourage applications especially from youngsters who already have some experience in volunteering or in working with children, youngsters and elder people and are, at this moment, available to commit to a long term experience of volunteer work abroad and willing to know more about the work developed in psycho-social animation sector in a special community of Lisbon, Carnide.

Special remarks (please read carefully):

• read the full call for participants
• we only accept complete applications that contain all the required documents
• mention the name of the project in the subject of the e-mail
• add the contact details of your Sending Organization to your e-mail
• mention the project category you are applying for in your application
• we can´t consider applications sent after the deadline
• send your application to sve.maosdomundo@gmail.com, applications sent through other communication channels (Facebook, Youthnetworks, etc.) will not be considered
• due to the high number of candidates, we are only able to contact the short-listed candidates (in order to invite them for a brief Skype interview)
• all the other candidates will be informed about the selection results by January, 26th through our blog.

Sessão informativa sobre o SVE

Convidamos todos os interessados em fazer o SVE (e os que ainda estão a hesitar!) para participarem numa sessão informativa sobre o Serviço Voluntário Europeu na sede da Spin na próxima terça-feira, 22 de Janeiro, às 15 horas!

Durante a sessão vamos explicar o que é o SVE e quais são os procedimentos até a partida do voluntário. Vamos também responder a todas as perguntas e falar do acompanhamento, da segurança e dos direitos e deveres do voluntário ao longo da implementação do projecto. Os voluntários que a Spin está a acolher agora vão partilhar connosco a sua experiência SVE em Portugal.

A sessão é gratuita e aberta a todos (inclusive os familiares e amigos das pessoas interessadas em fazer o SVE). Para te inscreveres, basta enviares um email para sve.spin@gmail.com! A participação na sessão não implica a tua candidatura ao SVE.

Até breve!

InterGenerations - actividade de constituição de parcerias em Lecce, Itália

Estão abertas as inscrições para a actividade de constituição de parcerias no domínio da solidariedade intergeracional "InterGenerations". O encontro terá lugar de 13 a 20 de Março em Lecce na Itália. Os países participantes da "InterGenerations" serão: Chipre, Estónia, Grécia, Hungria, Itália, Polónia, Portugal, Roménia, Suécia e Turquia.

As actividades de constituição de parcerias são eventos organizados com vista a permitir aos participantes encontrarem parceiros para cooperação transnacional e/ou para o desenvolvimento de projectos. A constituição de parcerias reúne potenciais parceiros e facilita o desenvolvimento de novos projectos em torno de um dado tema e/ou de uma Acção do Programa Juventude em Acção.

Os participantes devem:

- trabalhar com jovens e/ou idosos (ou ser líderes juvenis),
- estar interessados em desenvolver projectos sob o tema,

- ter a capacidade de comunicar em inglês.

Todas as despesas (incl. alojamento, alimentação, actividades) estão cobertas, excepto 30% da viagem.

Prazo-limite de candidatura: 5 de Fevereiro de 2013

Para mais informações e inscrições, contactar: 217145520, 914519264, intercambios@a-spin.pt.

Leonardo da Vinci Internship in Turkey

A Marta passou 3 meses em Kayseri na Turquia a fazer um estágio Leonardo da Vinci. Leiam aqui o artigo que escreveu sobre a sua experiência para um jornal local! Podem também ler a brochura informativa!

My name is Marta. Strange name, you may think?! Yes, it is not Turkish, I am from Portugal. Through project ‘Fast Forward’, hosted by the Portuguese Spin Association for the Exchange, Training and Cooperation among Peoples in Leonardo da Vinci Action from European Union Lifelong Learning Programme, I was the lucky chosen to do an internship at Kayseri Youth Center Association for three months.

So what do I do? As a sociologist and a social and youth work enthusiastic, I work on local and European projects related with youngsters. I was even luckier to have not one but three workplaces: Talas Youth Center, Kayseri Youth Center and Kayseri Youth and Sport Directorship. This allows me to get to know better this beautiful city, its different transportation systems (and all that is included, from getting lost to observing people), the city dynamics and how it is organized. Professionally, this enables me to understand more about the diverse phases of the full process related to youth and sport development and its activities. I could also verify that there is more than one way of working and managing tasks in the similar activity with different resources and distinct people that share the same cultural background. And of course, more people to know – absolutely marvelous people that are always ready and willing to share a lovely word, tasty food and the traditional Turkish tea with me – and fascinating personal and professional stories to discover!

Every time I can, I encourage youngsters from different ages to speak with me and improve their English (and also give some support with their homework), since it is our only way to communicate with each other – did I mention before how bad is my Turkish?! Usually they are very nice, curious and interested in me and my culture but also very motivated and active in showing me Turkish culture. It is a truly enjoyable and reciprocal learning, for both – I hope.

Besides the daily-life at the different workplaces, I would like to highlight three special and occasional moments of this professional adventure. In October, I was part of, as staff and as participant, the International Youth Exchange ‘Culture Occurs in Kitchen’ with other young people from Romania, Slovakia, Spain and of course Turkey. In November, I was part of the organization team and the project facilitator of an International Youth Exchange called ‘European Toy’ with youngsters from Bulgaria, Poland and Turkey. The big visible project for the month of December was a local one called ‘World has a Meeting at Talas: International Intercultural Exchange’ – one afternoon dedicated to the exchange between the cultures present in Kayseri.

We invited all foreigner residents to share their culture with us alongside Turkish people and culture! 15 countries accepted our challenge and we all understood, one more time, the advantages and the challenges related with cultural diversity and intercultural dialogue.

It is almost over, less than one week to go but like I always say, so far so good! I am very grateful for everyone that I met so far for facilitating this big challenge that is to get to know this peculiar culture and way of living that is so different from the Portuguese – and my personal one.

Marta Correia

EVS vacancy at Spin

Associação Spin is now looking for two volunteers for the next project period.

Hosting Organization: Associação Spin, Lisbon (2012-PT-21)
Project name: spinLX
Activity start date: 1st June 2013
Activity end date:  28 February 2014
Vacancies: 2
Application deadline: 16th January 2013
Application consists of: CV and project-specific motivation letter
Application sent to: evs.spin@gmail.com

Activities proposed to the volunteers:

The volunteers will participate in the activities of the European Programmes and Mobility Department by collaborating in:

- preparation of new project proposals on the frames of the Youth in Action Programme, Lifelong Learning Programme and others in the field of youth, training and education.
- coordination of EVS sending activities, such as assisting in the preparation for departure, travel arrangements
- organization and implementation of youth exchanges and trainings.
- organization and active participation in information sessions in schools, seminars and conferences in order to promote the YiA programme.
- Research and collect information about European opportunities for young people for the elaboration of the monthly newsletter/mailing and update information on the website.

The volunteers will participate in the activities of the Image and Communication Department by collaborating in:

- preparation, formatting and mailing of the monthly newsletter
- maintaining and updating all Spin’s communication channels
- the graphic design of the blog, website, brochures, posters, flyers and promotional materials for the organization and other publications organization using his/her creativity
- documenting all Spin’s activities and dissemination of information; general support in the activities of association

Special remarks:
-we only accept complete applications that contain all the required documents
-mention the name of the project in the subject of the e-mail
-send your application to evs.spin@gmail.com, applications sent through other
communication channels will not be considered
-mention the department you are applying for in your application
-applications sent after the deadline will not be considered

If you are interested, please read the full call here.

SVE em Lisboa - vídeo

O ex-voluntário SVE da Junta de Freguesia de Carnide (projecto coordenado pela Spin) criou um vídeo sobre os seus 8 meses em Lisboa.

O vídeo do Gilles está a participar num concurso! Vejam aqui e votem! Nós adorámos! :)

Aqui fica uma pequena descrição do video:

Avril 2012, je débarque à Lisbonne. Non pas comme touriste, mais pour y passer huit mois pour découvrir la seule capitale européenne qui a mis en place le budget participatif. Je découvre une ville bouillonnante, chargée d'histoires que le public français connaît très peu. Je découvre aussi ses habitants, ses festivals, sa cuisine, sa langue. Cette carte postale est aussi l'occasion d'expliquer à mes proches pourquoi je décide de m'y installer, leur donner envie grâce à cet abécédaire de 26 lettres de me rendre visite. Et vous, vous arrivez quand?