Bona Fides Association is looking for 2 Ukrainian volunteers to join a 12 months ESC project: Foreign Community Organizers: inclusion and solidarity in Katowice. The application form, Curriculum Vitae, and a cover letter in English have to be sent to the following emails: mariachiara@bonafides.pl & k.zychowicz@bonafides.pl Please, write in the title ”EVS in Katowice”
- Location: Katowice
- Deadline: 16 April 2019
- Duration: 12 months
- Mobility period: April 2019 – April 2020
Project description:
The volunteers will work in contact with their community and with the local Polish one in all steps of their community organizing process. Some of their tasks will be:
– To interview people from the Polish and Ukrainian communities in Katowice. This will help identify issues that locals care about and want to resolve. This will be done directly in the areas where Ukrainians live, so face to face and, if possible, to reach more people, a questionnaire about things they’d like to change or obstacles they meet in their integration process will be also spread online.
– Creating a community group and organizing regular meetings: this activity will be conducted by trying to gather people from both communities, so to create a community group that could be active in the community organizing process. These meetings will give the opportunity to local people to meet, to get to know each other and to discuss topics of common interest and possible obstacles and to elaborate solutions for a better change in their community. The volunteers, moreover, will encourage the locals and the Ukrainians to set up an informal community group that could become active along the project duration and after that.
– Research and documentation: the volunteers will take pictures of the places in which the local community indicates some obstacle or problems and will possibly record interviews with Ukrainians and Polish locals (if they agree, naturally) to document their needs, their feelings and better analyze the mutual integration process.
– The volunteers will organize events and gatherings for Ukrainians and Polish people (especially youngsters) to encourage a mutual exchange and cooperation and to support their integration. Cultural evenings, cooking events, historical presentations, meeting sessions (dedicated to organize interactive activities that involve Polish and Ukranian people so that they can meet and possibly establish some relationships, both working relationships, both friendships) will be held in Bona Fides or possibly in different neighborhood to give the chance to participate to a wider range of people.
– The volunteers will try to engage the local decision-makers and institutions through negotiation, confrontation to find effective solutions to the problems identified in the previous steps and to put them in practice. Once heard the voices from Ukrainians, the volunteers will bring these voices to the local institutions to present the important issues for Ukrainians, to find a suitable solution for everybody.
– The volunteers’ activities will take place also in local universities, libraries and youth centres to involve Ukrainians in the Polish community and make them more active together and to build fruitful cooperation.
– To encourage also our participants’ integration in the local community, we’d like to involve them in activities strictly in contact with the community itself, in collaboration with institutions and schools that host both Polish and Ukranian kids. For example, we’d like them to work with local children, orphans, seniors, disabled people (organizing cultural event for them, games, entertainment and support) and moreover we’d like them to collaborate with local association founded by foreigners, to be closely in touch with foreigners’ life and encourage local and Ukranian people to be involved in these activities.
Food\Accommodation\Transport arrangements:
The accommodation is provided for each participant, who will share a flat with another (or maximum with two more) volunteer of the same sex.
They are located in Katowice, modern and developed multicultural city in the Silesian region, southern Poland, a lively city full of event and entertainment possibilities and even job opportunities, especially for foreigners.
The flats are well equipped will all the necessary for the kitchen, toilet and bedroom. Free Wi-Fi in the flats and in the office is available. All the expenses (gas, water, electricity) are covered by the RO. All the flats are close and well-connected to the city centre, and the volunteers will have a monthly ticket to be used to reach the Association, which is comfortably located in the very centre of the city. The buses to reach the flats are several and at any time, including the night time.
The volunteers will be given a monthly ticket paid by the Receiving Organization to be free to move all around the city, and in case of transfer due to their tasks, the travel expenses are covered.
The volunteers will receive monthly money for food (100EUR) and pocket money (85 EUR) for their free time in the Polish currency (they’ll open a Polish bank account to make it easier to make transfers).
The travel costs from their country to Poland and vice versa at the beginning and at the end of the project are fully covered.
Find something more about volunteering in Bona Fides here: https://www.facebook.com/evskatowice/