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Youth Exchanges through European Voluntary Service
Thanks to the network's dedicated sending and hosting organisations, young persons aged 18-30 are given the opportunity to work at another TEH centre for 2-12 months through European Voluntary Service (EVS). EVS is part of the EU Programme Youth in Action.
With the help of EVS you can go abroad and work in another TEH centre with all expenses covered. All costs during your stay abroad such as your travel, food, accommodation, insurance, language-training, local transports and pocket-money will be covered by EVS. EVS is open to all young people aged 18-30 and you can stay abroad for 2-12 months.
In TEH we give priority to young people who are active in the centres of the network. To go and work abroad at another centre of the network you need a TEH centre to act as your sending organisation. The TEH centres that are sending and hosting young people are listed under Who can help you to go? and Where can you go?
If you are not active in a centre of the network you can either:
1. Find your nearest TEH centre under Members and contact their EVS Contact person to discuss the matter. In many cases it's possible to become engaged in the different activities of the centres on voluntary basis. Once the centre gets to know you they might also be willing to act as your sending organisation.
2. Find a sending and hosting organisation outside TEH. EVS is not something for TEH exclusively but there are hundreds of organisations working with EVS all over Europe, not only in the field of culture. To find out more, please visit this database or contact your National Agency.
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Volunteers' stories at the Youth Exchange Blog
Get the perspective of the volunteers at the Youth Exchange Blog! Below you can get a taste of what they have written so far.
Quotes from Marian Söderholm at UfaFabrik, Berlin:
02/25/2010
This is a space for public thought and personal reflection, and I hope it will inspire others to take the chance, if and when it presents itself, to travel and work in another country for a while, however short. It’s worth it, I promise.
I have, as I mentioned, been in Berlin for just over one month now. During this time I have experienced snow, sunshine, early morning coffee and late night dancing, Turkish food markets and vegetable kebabs, birthday parties and bookshop parties, language lessons and street dance classes, new housemates and old friends, film festivals and German hip-hop, sculpture and S-bahns, theatre premieres and pony stables. And that’s not even half of it.
03/05/2010
Today I will be conducting my first two interviews on the theme ”ecology in the ufaFabrik”, which is quite exciting. Not only will I be practising my interviewing skills, I will also get to sit down with a lot of people in the organisation that I usually wouldn’t get the chance to talk to, and find out more about their work and ideas on how to develop their ecological and environmental impact on a day-to-day basis.
03/25/2010
I have just over a month left to go here at ufaFabrik. A lot has to be done before then. Writing reports, planning seminars, theatre festivals, hosting of Changing Room-exchangees, documentation, evaluation, preparation…and of course, the Trans Europe Halles meeting in Budapest.
Quotes from Martina Prokopová at Culture Center Rex, Belgrade:
Most of my EVS activities in culture center Rex consist of work on the Free Zone project, [...] The Free Zone Festival is a festival of documentary films engaged in human rights topics. It is a festival with no TV shows or low-budget videos, but with the latest documentaries, feature and short films of reputable directors.
Thanks to EVS I had opportunity to lend a hand on the fifth year of Free Zone. With other members of team I worked on a catalogue of the festival, contact list of volunteers, promotion of the festival, I was interviewing the audience during the festival and assisting in office = CybeRex for two months. I could follow small successes and disasters which occurred daily the whole time, I could follow different approaches of the team members.
Quotes from Florence Jauberthie at Mejeriet, Lund:
Changing country, changing language, changing "room", changing food. Indeed, changing life. That's something I've never experienced in my life. And I might say after seven months living here that I'm proud of myself, dared to change my habits and to broaden my mind. It's like to learn life again... And that one's of the amazing and best thing that I have done in my life! Nothing ventured, nothing gained!
I might say that I'm the typical cliché of the Frenchwoman, because I can't live without cheese, wine and "baguette". But since I live in Sweden, I have learned to live without (or with less, let's say!), and I discover an other way of life... [...] Here, I've learned a new word: « Fika ». And I can't live without now!
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The life abroadWhen living and working in another country, every day is full of new impressions. While developing your skills, exploring a new country, finding a new favourite café and getting to know your new co-workers, you also often feel like sharing your experiences with others. You can read more about the life abroad in this file.
THE LIFT HANDBOOK
– Sharing Experiences of a youth exchange network project
Within the network project The Lift (2006-2008), young people who are active at different Trans Europe Halles centres were given the chance to go abroad and work at another Trans Europe Halles centre through the mobility scheme European Voluntary Service (EVS). A large number of Trans Europe Halles centres were involved in The Lift and the experiences from the project have now resulted in a handbook about networking through EVS. The aim of the handbook is to offer a tool for other organisations that would like to start similar projects in the future. To download the handbook, please go to Publications.
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