EVS volunteer and mentor on-arrival training

Aims & objectives

Aim:
To raise the quality of EVS projects in Latvia via developing volunteers' and mentors' cooperation and understanding of the EVS program.
Goals:
• to develop EVS volunteers and mentors communication and cooperation skills, improving trust and openness;
• to create a common understanding of volunteer and mentor roles, duties and rights in EVS projects;
• to develop understanding of EVS as a nonformal education program, accenting the learning process existence in projects, conforming to the Youthpass competences;
• To create an understanding of Youthpass;
• To create a common understanding of specific EVS projects, their realisation's formal criteria, learning needs and to develop a plan with suggestions to use it in the project's realisation;
• to develop participants' awareness of intercultural education and differences of different coutries' work culture;
• to create a personal development plan for each volunteer;

Target group & international/intercultural composition of the group & team

Trainer team: 2 Latvian trainers (including me)
Group (volunteers): 2 from Turkey, 1 from Germany, 2 from France, 1 from Spain.
Group (mentors): 7 from Latvia

Training methods used & main activities

Getting to know each other + group building:
• Paticipants greeting each other while chaotically moving w/ preset questions
• Participants tell about their childhood heroes (link w/ national independence day)
• Frontal presetnation of training's concept
• Participants' portraits w/ 3 questions
NFE and Youth in Action, learning in EVS:
• A story of NFE via Aristotle
• Discassion groups about NFE in respective EVS projects
EVS projects presentations:
• Discussion around a campfire about first feelings meeting mentors/volunteers
• Participants present their projects as a sketch/story/horror movie
Formal criteria, finances, AXA:
• Sharing of experience in small groups
• Common discussion of unclear points
• Pair discussion of theory vs practice in participants' projects
• Common discussion of unclear points
• Frontal presentation of AXA insurance
Project plans:
• Group work creating an activity plan
Communication and cooperation in EVS projects:
• Mentors and volunteers create their own vision of an ideal volunteer/mentor respectively.
• Cooperation exercise – assisting a person w/ closed eyes during a coffee break (with exchange of assistant-receiver afterwards)
• Creation of cooperation memoranda in project teams
ICL:
• Presentation of the Onion model
• Creating own onion w/ specific layers and sharing in the group
• Volunteers and mentors organize an intercultural evening
Youthpass:
• interactive presentation of Youthpass competences
• project groups determine relevance of activities
• group discussion of results
Networking and idea development:
• Add relevant learning activities to the learning plan
• Idea market of activities
Personal development:
• Participants write a letter to themselves
Last and frequently asked questions:
• Group discussion
Evaluation:
• Finding symbols around and giving them meaning
• Evaluation forms

Outcomes of the activity

Most important outcomes for the participants was to arrange and understand what are their tasks and plan the activities. A lot of mentors had little idea what to do with the volunteers – they came to specific answer together with the respective volunteers.
Participants developed the sense of the project as a whole and understand their part in it.
A big success was the ability to coexist and work productively with participants of such diverse profile and culture.

Your tasks and responsibilities within the team

• Developing the program per the participants' profile
• Realization of the activity as one of two full-time trainers
• Evaluation of the program and report to the

I worked on this training for 3 days as a full time trainer.