2005–ISL–21. International workcamps leaders

Description :

The scope of activities for the volunteers will change during their stay in Iceland and can be chronologically clearly divided in four (4) different stages:

1. Volunteers will arrive in Iceland either in April or May. After arrival and once all have arrived, SEEDS will organise and carry out an on-arrival training and language orientation workcamp-seminar. During this period of time volunteers will be given enough tools and theoretical knowledge combined with practical tasks in order to prepare them for the stay in Iceland and the activities to be undertaken on the field at later stage. Volunteers will be introduced to four main topics, the hosting organisation, Iceland, environment and leadership. Intercultural, recreational and integration activities will be organised with the active involvement of the volunteers.

2. After the on-arrival training and before the starting date of the first international volunteers’ camp (which will be either at the end of May or beginning of June), the EVS volunteers will take an active role in tuning and finalising the preparation of the camps to be held during the upcoming months. Activities might include getting in contact and visiting the hosting projects, arranging final details concerning work, logistics and practicalities for the camps, communicating with the international volunteers, preparing and providing information to both the hosting projects as their participants. During the first two stages volunteers will have weekends free and work will de carried out within usual week-working-days, Monday to Friday.

3. On field work, to take place between June and September. International volunteers’ camps will then be executed and EVS volunteers will lead those camps. Workcamps are the most common form of short-term volunteering and are projects where a group of (usually young) unskilled volunteers work and live together on a project which has been identified by a local community or a project working with that community. They generally last for 2 weeks.

   The types of the projects are mainly nature or environmental oriented, and they can be for instance ecological research, removing invasive growth (luppina), building of walking paths or hiking trails, cleaning of the coastline, reforestation and erosion control works, construction or renovation of a community building (such as a school or medical block), monument or community centre, etc… There are sometimes cultural and study projects, agricultural projects and others depending basically on the identified need of the local community.

   International workcamps bring together volunteers from different nationalities and backgrounds aiming at building up international understanding and therefore encouraging peace while working for an identified need of the local community. Groups’ sizes vary between 5 and 20 participants.

   The responsibilities of a work camp leader will vary according to the hosting community and the type of project, but the following list gives an idea of what they could normally be responsible for:

   • Helping the volunteers feel comfortable with the project, welcoming and talking to them, to establish a good individual relationship and to ensure they do not have avoidable problems, and that they remain happy with the project.
   • Acting as the link between the volunteers and the project host, explaining the needs of the one to the other.
   • Acting as the link between the volunteers, the project hosting community and SEEDS, trying to ensure that the aims, needs and desires of all three can be compromised to provide the best possible result.
   • Budgeting the food and other costs of the volunteers.
   • Motivating the group of volunteers to ensure that they are able to carry out the agreed programme, such as ensuring that everyone gets to work on time.
   • Co-ordinating the domestic arrangements such as meals and cleaning to ensure that the basic needs of the volunteers are met.
   • Ensuring clean water, sufficient food, and other health and safety considerations of the volunteers. Volunteers must not be exposed to any unnecessary risks to their health or to accidents in work or leisure activities.
   • Trying to involve everyone in the project so that no volunteer feels excluded from the group and none is alienated from the project.
   • Managing the group dynamics of the volunteer group so that it does not split into sub-groups.
   • Providing the time and space for ideas to develop from within the group, particularly in relation to the social programme, but also having ideas for activities that can be organised for the group in the evenings.

   Volunteers will have enough days free after each work camp in order to rest and prepare the next project. In any case these four (4) months between June and September are extremely demanding and volunteers will be highly active, which will require a great deal of energy, enthusiasm, self initiative and ability to work under extreme conditions, travelling and moving in Iceland very often, meeting new people and leaving them after relatively short periods of time.

   During this stage volunteers will no longer be under personal supervision of the organisation, but in any case contact will be constant through telephone and some visits.

4. After the end of the camps’ season, volunteers will return to Reykjavík and a structured evaluation of their experience as of the projects will be undertaken. After evaluating the work behind, all the feedback and input provided will be used in order to plan next years’ projects and to raise the quality of the programme offered both for EVS as camps’ volunteers. Additional to the in Iceland evaluation, volunteers will be in charge of organising a meeting for the Icelandic volunteers who were in projects abroad with our partner organisations around the world. Some of these enthusiastic home-comers (returnees) will hopefully become active members of our organisation; this will be stimulated through the organisation of different social and practical events to increase the involvement of new members.

   To finalise with, the hosting organisation –SEEDS- will organise an end-of-the-EVS seminar, where we will evaluate the experience as a whole for the volunteers in Iceland.

For more information, plus visit this website: http://europa.eu.int/comm/youth/program/sos/hei/hei_form_en.cfm?HEID=40000034501

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