Removing cultural and linguistic barriers in the province of Jaén

Removing cultural and linguistic barriers in the province of Jaén.

Dear friends,
Colectivo GENTES continues with offering young people from other countries the opportunity to participate in an European Voluntary Service here in Spain through a project that helps and motivates our youth of the province of Jaén to participate also in this experience that is called Erasmus+. Because of this we begin our searching of partners for the project "Removing Barriers", whose objective is to pass the communicative fears and to motivate the youth to take part actively in European experiences based in interculturality, European citizenship and leadership.

Context:
The youth of the province of Jaén has only barely knowledge of different languages and different cultures. The four EVS volunteers from France, Italy, Germany and Ukraine, whose project is to promote and diffuse the programme Erasmus+, noticed that there is barely mobility of the youth of Jaén, because the level of english (and other languages) and the knowledge of different cultures in general is quite low. During their activity the four volunteers saw Jaén from an external perspective, talked with a lot of Jaén’s youth and so they discovered why the youngsters fear to leave their province.
Furthermore is to say that only eight young people came to Jaén and not more than 15 went abroad with the programme Erasmus+.
Because of that there is a need to remove this linguistic and cultural barriers who prevent that the youth of the province of Jaén improves their European knowledge.

The project aims:

- to sensitise the youth of the province of Jaén about european citizenship, european rights;
- to improve the knowledge of different languages and cultures;
- to increase the rate of youth mobility in Jaén;
- to break the fear of leaving the zone of comfort;
- to provide volunteers with an experience of multicultural and intercultural learning and European citizenship such as participants and youth of the province;
- fight against the unemployment of the youth in Jaén by increasing their knowledge of intercultural communication and culture, through improving their verbal and nonverbal communication, TIC and other soft skills like creativity and non-formal education;
- to increase the motivation to learn new languages through different activities.

THE PROJECT AIM IS NOT TO CREATE A LANGUAGE COURSE

The main themes

- non-formal education and active participation;
- cooperation between associations and public bodies in the province of Jaén and Europe;
- intercultural communication and examination of other cultures.

What the volunteers will learn:
- will learn non-formal education methods and techniques for effective removing cultural and linguistic barriers;
- will improve the knowledge of the European Union and the rights of the European citizenship;
- will know opportunities that the programme Erasmus+ gives to to the young people;
- will develop leadership skills;
- will learn how to analyze and define the communication strategy of the project;
- will explore linguistic skills (Spanish/English and other languages if possible);
- will explore tools of social media communication and public work;
- will improve skills in youth work;
- will explore tools of DEOR-strategies in Erasmus+;
- will learn how to cooperate and to live in a multicultural lifestyle;
- will learn how to solve multicultural problems through mediation;
- will learn how to create a work in equal opportunities, gender equality and environment;
- will learn how to use the practice “Mindfulness” in the youth work.

Tasks to be performed by volunteers:
- to practice the planning, preparation, implementation and evaluation of visibility and DEOR strategies;
- to prepare training session, workshops based on non-formal education learning methods in order to develop the tools and techniques of self assessment;
- to organize social events with the aim to show different cultures and languages;
- to collect, create and represent personal testimonials of Ex-Erasmus+-participants;
- to make monthly newsletter (for example including volunteers calendar, events, cooking recipes from different culture, volunteers Decalogue);
- to use leadership and mentoring techniques in a non-formal education environment;
- to continue cooperating with local public bodies in the province of Jaén in order to promote multicultural dimensions;
- to implement Erasmus+ KA3 within the structure of the association Colectivo Gentes, increasing the awareness of European citizen rights and the active participation of the youth;
- to organize activities who aim at showing different cultures, languages and politics;
- to cooperate with other organizations who treat the topic of intercultural life;
- to support young people who are interested in taking part in a project of Erasmus+;
- to enjoy the project like an opportunity for personal development.

Dates: October 2016 – July 2017
Place: Jaén, Andalucía, Spain

Volunteers profile
Four participants with at least basic knowledge of English, Spanish and other languages if possible until the beginning of the project. The volunteer should be open minded to different cultures, know his own culture and the best, already know another culture. Also should be interested in the politics of the European Union and in the European citizen rights. Furthermore should be interested in improving their communicative and linguistic skills as knowledge about social media technologies or non-formal learning methods.
Finally is to say that the volunteer should be interested in reach the objective of increasing the respect of other cultures.

If you want to apply as a partner organization or as a volunteer, please send to us until the 10th of April the application form and the partner page file that you can download on the right. If you are a volunteer without sending organisation please ask in your National Agency for any accredited sending organisation who is close to your home. In other case, if you are a accredited Sending Organisation without a young applicant take in consideration that your candidature is not our priority. (This decision is because we think that it is better to present the project already with the profile of the volunteers.) Please check the Activity Agreement draft (that we will sign in case the project will be approved) - you can find in the right side of this page.

The result of the selection will be communicated as from the 18th of April.
When you are selected send us the firmed mandate.