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