Karst4U: Discover Undiscoverd

We are happy to announce a call for partners for our project for volunteers!
Cave park Grabovača for volunteers offers many various things to do. Volunteering also as working in the tourism and the nature protection is specific, each day is different, you meet different people from all over of the world, work different jobs and always learn something new. Volunteers would work in the office of the PI, located in the center of Perušić and in the park, located 2,5km from the center of Perušić
MAIN ACTIVITIES:
1. Assist on the maintenance works in the park together with employees and students who work in the park, by doing things like cleaning overgrown old paths through the villages in the park area, cleaning the water sources and ordination the environment around, marking the trails in the park, painting the existing infrastructure;
2. Assist the employee in the field of marketing (visiting tourism fairs, works on translating the brochures, sharing the brochures);
3. Support the old local people who live in the area of the park by helping them to store the hay for the winter and hilling the gardens with vegetables;
4. Assist in the interpretation of the Cave park Grabovača for visitors using the material in the park (roll-ups, flyers, brochures, photos, videos ...) in their native language (tourists)
4. Assist the employees in organizing the educational activities for visitors of the Cave park Grabovača (objective of the educational workshops is to interest young people for the nature; understanding the karst landscape, water in karst, environmental conditions and problems in karst areas, learning the basic caving skills);
5. Assist in the school organization in nature (for children aged 4-15 years)
6. Hold a beginner's course of their native language for local children (children 7-15 years)
7. Helping the employees in the field work - volunteers will assist in the field researches related with speleological objects (finding location and marking the location with GPS - so far is located 29 caves and pits and the assumption is that in the area within the borders of the future regional park is more than 40 speleological objects) and water sources. In February, 2012. the PI " Cave park Grabovača " has launched a process of expansion of the park boundaries ( from the current 595.5 ha to over 5,500 ha ) and the re-categorization of significant landscape into a regional park. Good part of that area is still not completely explored.
8. Visiting other parts of Lika region (NP „Plitvice Lakes“, NP „North Velebit“, river Lika, NP „Una“ in Bosnia and others) in order to exchange the experience and participation in different activities in the field of tourism and protected areas.

Volunteers would have the opportunity to learn and adopt the following skills:
- Knowledge and skills of interpretation of karst ecosystems and natural and cultural-historical heritage of the Cave park Grabovača
- Communication skills with tourists in the park
- Basic skills for field work e.g. assisting in the field reasearches
- Knowledge about the functioning of the protected areas in Croatia
- Knowledge about how people live in the municipality of Perušić and the specifics of local community
- Fundamentals of the Croatian language
- Skills of teamwork

We expect to host 10 participants ie. Volunteers.
Volunteers will be staying in a creative environment and will therefore be able to direct their ideas to improve park services for users. Volunteers will be in direct communication with visitors of the Cave park. For each proposed activities volunteers will be divided in groups, according to their skills and interest, and each group will be working one part of the activity.

In order to become a partner in this project you must comply with the following criteria:
 high motivation, inovative
 aged of participant over 18
 team workers, desire to work in the field and field research
 represent fully registered NGO/Institution which has PIC number and uploaded registration documents to URF portal
 You are legally established in a country belonging to one of the following groups:
- the 27 EU member states

Deadline for application the project is 1st of October.

Also, please forward this call to any person, organization or network you deem possibly interested.
If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me.
We wish you good luck and we look forward to our future parership in this great project!

If you are interested to be part of our project and to stay in Croatia for one month, please contact me: jelena.milkovic@pp-grabovaca.hr

Best regards,

Jelena Milković, Public institution „Cave park Grabovača“