Your arrival
All of you will arrive between 1st and 4th of October, we will pick you up in the airport or railway station or bus station in Donetsk (you will be informed individually who will pick you up) and we will bring you to your flat
IMPORTANT: In case if your flight/bus/train is postponed, deleted or in case of any emergency situations – do not hesitate to inform us by sending sms!
VERY IMPORTANT: Please keep all the documents which prove your travel: BOARDING PASSES (it’s a small card with you name and flight details which you will be given after check in – please have a look on picture below how it looks), originals of all the bus or train tickets (third picture below). PLEASE KEEP THEM ALL!!!
AGAIN IMPORTANT: not it’s autumn here, BUT WINTER will come very soon please, be prepared for minus 10 – minus 20 degrees during January and February! Take EVERYTHING what you have warm with you Specially dear Spanish and Portuguese participants – please get prepared good!!!
Here are some inspiring pictures for you
Accomodation
All of you will live in one rented places – it’s our “old volunteer’s” flat which we are renting already for a long time, 2 people in the room.
You will be provided with bed linens and towels (one big and one small). One or two completes of extra bed linens will be provided per flat, so in case of washing it will be possible to use extra set. Washing facilities (washing mashing) will be provided.
Volunteers will need to cook for themselves; facilities for cooking will be provided (cooker, fridge, dishes, etc).
In general Volunteers need to be prepared for simple conditions, and consider that living standards in Eastern Europe are lower than in Western Europe.
Volunteers are required to clean their living places by themselves.
It’s important that in Ukraine it’s a kind of rule and habit that you need to take off shoes when you are entering the flat. We will ask you to follow this rule in volunteer’s flat as well. You might have home shoes or socks in case if it’s cold to be in the flat barefoot.
In the beginning of the stay volunteers will be asked to pay amount of 25 Euros (or equivalent of this amount in Ukrainian currency) as “deposit money”, this amount will be given them back before their departure after the final cleaning of the flat and final checking.
Detailed description of the flat in attachment.
Start of your work
First day (or days) of your stay here - is for resting – you will meet your roommates, your mentor, your coordinator, we will provide you with your pocket money, so you will be able to make your first shopping and discover a little bit the area.
On the first weekend (5-6 th of October) we are planning to organize some meting with all the mentors and local volunteers to let you get introduced to local youth
We will start real “work” on Monday, October,7 and during first two weeks you are going to have intense schedule as we will need to get integrated to Donetsk realities, get to know each other, plan your project and get to know people and places where you will implement your future activities. Besides, during the first two weeks we will make Russian Survival Language workshops for you to introduce you to Russian language and teach together “survival” Russian.
In the end of the second week we are going to make individual schedule and to divide you in small groups of 2-3 people, so that you will be ready to start your activities. Besides, you will continue learning Russian in small groups according to your language level.
Starting from third week your tasks will be:
planning of work, preparation of work and work with children and parents and grandparents, among others there can be: sport games, active team games, short intercultural sessions, language sessions, etc.
making pictures and videos during activities;
writing down short stories about the project and adding them to the web page of the project;
participation in weekly planning and evaluation sessions, language course.
Be ready to work in small groups 2-3 people together (different groups for different activities), probably every day in different place. Your working week will be 34-38 hours, 5 days per week.
We expect that one day each of you will work in the office, this day can be used for individual planning with coordinator, individual evaluation via writing blog, or preparing information for the web-page or developing your individual activity in the office or helping us with routine office work.
And another four days you will spend in different places – we will choose the places according to your preferences after the visits we will make during the first weeks.
Once a week we will have meeting all together – to share what was done during the week, discuss possible problems, share ideas, evaluate what was done and plan future week.
In the middle of November we will invite you to on-arrival training in Slavsko (Western Ukraine) where you will have chance to meet other EVS volunteers all over Ukraine and share your, ideas, problems, experience with them and with professional trainers from SALTO EECA.
Volunteers will be asked to record work with cameras and video cameras (will be provided) and to make small movies on base of their work. These video and audio material volunteers will be asked to add to the web-page of the HO and to promote in this way all the experience of the project.
Volunteers have right for two extra free days per month. You can take your days of holidays every month or collect them and use all of them in one time. It’s important that coordinator should be informed about time when you want to take holidays at least 2 weeks in advance.