Volunteering 4 Change

The expected effect from the voluntary activities is to achieve an effective communication with no stress in a friendly environment between all involved participants where young people will be able to
learn mutually from the experience and the culture of the others. Personal and professional experience will be exchanged while developing and implementing projects and youth initiatives,
communicating with partners, working with social media and interacting with the local youngsters. Association IIC will accept volunteers as the main aim will be to promote volunteerism and to
organize diverse initiatives for the inhabitants of the small rural villages as well as to attract maximum number of participants to get involved in them. The volunteers will acquire skills to work with different
software products, diverse informational sources, as well as skills to promote the activities and the topics of focus for the project among the target groups. Living and working in an intercultural environment will help the volunteers build up skills for working in a dynamic context which will be very useful for them in personal and professional aspect. They will learn how to work in teams and to be tolerant to other people. The stay and the work in a different social and cultural context will develop with them skills like adaptation, cultural and emotional sensibility, improving the communication on different levels – non-verbal, verbal in a foreign language or in Bulgarian, including the local dialect spoken in the region. Through the implementation of the project activities and through their stay and interaction with the locals, the volunteers will enrich the culture of the region by introducing the attractiveness of their culture and nationality.

The project “Volunteering 4 Change” envisages the implementation of individual volunteering activities on the territory of five European countries for a period of three years. The volunteers will
engage in activities for a period of 9 months in the following European countries: Bulgaria, Slovakia, Poland, Italy and Spain. The working week of each volunteer will consist of 5 working days and each
working day will have 6 working hours. The volunteers in Bulgaria will work three times a week with representatives of the local community living in the villages around Razlog. The topics that will be in
their focus of work and that will be promoted during their stay are social inclusion, stimulating youth participation of youngsters from rural areas, enhancing the solidarity and tolerance as well as
intercultural communication. During the rest two days of the working week, the volunteers will implement activities in Razlog, they will maintain the information channels of the project and will
interexchange information with other volunteer implementing their voluntary service in another partner country through skype meetings. They will also have the opportunity to get involved or to
initiate activities together with volunteers from the COOL project. The volunteers will reach the target groups of the project with the support of the local partners of IIC Association, the support teams in
the villages and in Razog, as well as through visits to schools to promote the diverse activities that they have prepared and they will implement together with school kids and youngsters, visits to social
centres and institutions, etc. The local community will be offered a diverse set of activities and workshops developing their sensitivity, artistic approach, creativity, communication skills and
socialisation. Here are some of the envisaged activities: courses on foreign language and culture, music classes, dance clubs, art clubs, yoga and aerobics, workshops for people with special needs
like art therapy, music therapy, ergotherapy, etc. The activities will reach all interested stakeholders in the region of Razlog Municipality. This rule will be observed and complied with by all international
partners of the project – accessibility to activities of all representatives of the local community regardless of their sex, age, social status and sexual orientation. Throughout the summer period, a great percentage of the activities will be organised outdoors, while during the cold winter months IIC Association together with the associated partners will provide space and premises for their implementation