hello I am Henk I have been asked to
inform you a bit about short term EVS, maybe to say
at the moment I am Belgian myself but due to
to the mobility programs in the past I moved to Slovenia
and we established a youth centre over there, a youth organisation and focus
really really on working with young people with
fewer opportunities
all different kinds of, all different kind of reasons
we've noticed that sending these young
people
on an international project can really make
a difference it really helps them
develop their own confidence, their own capacities
they really work on their competences
and that's not the only thing
it is also the context
in which they are living, the parents, the school,
the Youth Centre, centres for social work
everybody who is involved
with these young people believe in that and support it
and really make like a really strong
efforts of the young person
to show, hey, you've done something, you see you can do something good which really
has a big big big impact on them
So we started like a couple years ago
between Belgium of course because of the relation and Slovenia
and this has been growing growing and
I must say at the moment we have quite a big network
of organizations who focus more on
your
focus mainly on sending and hosting
young people with fewer opportunities
and this is very important, very
important to have this network because
if if you really want to send or host
receive you need to be sure with your
that you have the right partner, because this is not like a daily event,
this is not just like a holiday
this is really something
it is a hard day working for the organization
and please do not underestimate the effort that the young person has to do because it's
real
a life
changing activity which means that for a lot
of young people
they are getting confronted with their own limitations
these young people when you send them
first of all
you need to know them, you have to be sure that you know that they're willing to go
if they're not motivated it's very hard
You need to prepare them, as I said it's
not a holiday
it's not a school trip it is really something
which
has a very very influence on different
images of their own life on
also as I said before on
their direct context and so on
so prepare them very well on
then during the event itself do not
think they gonna be
for a long time away and they are going to change, no!
it's just a small seed which has to grow
because
every EVS is just a method it's never
never an aim on itself, there has to be something
following
as a long-term pathway
and yeah, why should you do it?
If you want to host it's different do not expect to have
like
an extra
extra pair of hands in your organization
because the service is less important
than the learning, the development on
what should you do it? Because it's a
choice it's a mission
and you help people and in many cases
it's also the opportunity to be able to
send
your young people to this organization
yeah, we have very good results
young people are very happy lot of them
went back to school for example
A lot of the found a job afterwards or just
finally had a positive experience
which they hadn't seen in a long time
I can also give an example, we had two young
people who are
quite disabled group and they went only for 2 weeks to a festival in Slovakia
which was an enormous
impact what happened to them and
when they came back
they were able to move out
from the living group, the living unit and they went to like
a more a home replacing situation a
more independent way of living and so on
Small steps are important small goals
are important
but it is important that you're
realistic what you're really realistic
that you do not say
hey, we are going to change the world. No,
step-by-step
and don't forget to involve the young persons
ask them what they want to, do look
together with them look together what is
the goal they want to achieve
Yeah, so why should you do it
well you have to be a bit of a masochist
because it is hard working
but at the end you have such a reward, such a good
feeling
and then you see the results so I can
definitely definitely recommend it and
the good thing is that
compared with the regular EVS is that there are
also a lot of possibilities financially
so you can apply for exceptional costs
you can apply for special costs related
to special needs,
and this can be very diverse for example
you can
apply for extra funding to give them a
better
deeper longer preparation, you could ask
for
reinforcement mentorship so that they
are always have a monitoring
on the young person is always somebody
available to give them a hand, to give
them the push when needed.
it is
important that
these young people do have a mentor somebody
who is really
stand next to them, not above or under them.
A mentor is more than just a friend a mentor is
also a big shoulder,
somebody to be to rely on
a somebody who helps in daily life
The mentor that doesn't have to be
available 24 hours a day
but should be aware that he has to be a bit more more flexible
For some people being a
mentor is as a personal choice a
and some organization it's a job
depends how you look at
I can really only say
be aware that
when you decide to do with you cannot do
it alone to be in a team
everybody from the organization has to be behind it
everybody has to supported it and I think
that this will be
something which you have to prepare for
the well in advance
everything starts the with preparation and
being aware that's not a regular EVS
it Is really really a different way
but with a very good impact
a couple of a good things with short
term EVS is that a when you apply
you can apply longer in advance and you can
be more flexible
because if you really say oh we have the
volunteers then you have to apply, then
you have to wait for approval, then you have
to wait
for the preparation, then there is the
starting date
it can take six months and believe me
these young people with fewer opportunities
they are not always motivated that long
so when they're motivated
you to catch them and have to be able to
send them, I can't say as soon as possible but
within a normal framework you have to put them on
the plane
this means that your partner
organization has to be ready to be flexible
also means that you need to be aware
that the preparation of these young people
should be really scheduled and structured
individual.
what do we do especially in preparation?
We inform the context, we work with the
context we go together to the parents
because they need to support it. We
try to do
several things together with the young
person for example he doesn't have an identity card
or a passport we go together. What else
do we do
give of course a training but everything is on an
individual base
as much as possible we work on
self-confidence, sometimes we even have to
go to back together so that the young
person
definitely has everything with him what
he needs otherwise they end up with two
two pairs of underwear for
a whole week for example
or other problems or they have their
summer clothes going to
cold country so it is,
they really need to be held by hand but
at the same time
you need to give them the possibility to
discover themselves. It is empowering all the time
and important
very important but often is forgotten what
is the same as regular EVS
needs to be follow-up you need to validate
what's going on with them so and mostly
when you can do it is with this together again
with this context you have been working in, with the
parents,
the organizations and so on because alone to
do a follow-up
alone with these young people needs to
be enforced everyday again
and be very clear in your goal
that's where you want to go to. Otherwise
what I would say
just go for it just do it don't be
scared of it really it's just
very very it's more easy than you would
think. Start with the network start with
finding organizations who want to work
with you
be sure you can trust them and if it's a
failure
well you should learn out of it and
and do it again and make clear to the young
person
that the failure, everybody is allowed to have a failure but you should stand up
and go again. Once you get the tricks
you go and you'll see
it's really worth doing it