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We are looking for 2 volunteers for September deadline that would start with their activities in mid December 2009 or early January 2010 until the end of June 2010.
Here’s a short description of the Activity:
Special Kindergarten No 245 for Visually Impaired Children in Warsaw (2009-PL-21) is a specialized institution that takes care of visually impaired children from 3 to 6 years of age. At present there are 54 children with various visual defects in our kindergarten. They are divided into 4 age groups: 3-year-olds, 4-year-olds, 5-year-olds and 6-year-olds.
Proposed activities for EVS volunteers:
The main role of the volunteer that we would like to invite to our daily-care place would be based on direct work with a blind child and assisting the child during its stay in the kindergarten. Our kindergarten is addressed to visually impaired children. However, due to the current social needs, sometimes we do admit blind children or children with visual deficits so severe that they practically require full-time assistance in performing most of their daily activities. Work with a blind child includes getting the child to know the world around him/her, moving within the kindergarten spaces, teaching the child to use the equipment available on the premises, assistance during the teacher-managed classes, additional activities, as well as helping the child with typical self-care activities, such as personal hygiene, help at eating (assisted eating), dressing and undressing. The work during the classes is connected with preparing under the direct teacher’s supervision special aid materials that may be necessary for tasks to be performed. Such aid materials need to be adjusted to the specific child’s visual abilities. The volunteer would strictly cooperate with the teachers working in particular groups as far as the work with a given child is concerned and would also exchange his/her observations and reflections, while at the same time complying with the teacher’s requirements in connection with group activities.
Considering the described activities in which the volunteers would be executing or participating in we believe that they would have the possibility to develop their pedagogical skills in the area of working with children with special needs, as well as participating in various workshops and trainings organised by and/or in the kindergarten. We are confident that volunteers can gain a lot of knowledge and practical skills they will be able to use in the future.
Volunteer profiles and recruitment process:
Since the volunteers would be working with a little child that is blind or whose eyesight is impaired to the point in which verbal communication becomes the basic form of contact available to them, it would be good for the volunteer to have basic knowledge of Polish. It is not, however, a demand from our side. At the same time, it is important that volunteers would be eager to learn Polish, at least the basics that are necessary for communication.
The most important characteristics that we would be looking for are the following:
- that the volunteers like children and working with children
- can easily establish contact with small children (3-4 years old)
- openness and open-mindedness.
Pedagogical experience and/or explicit pedagogical predisposition/skills would also be welcome but are definitely not a requirement.
We feel that due to the specifics of the activities proposed, we could not host volunteers under the age of 18 or disabled volunteers. The latter is unfortunately impossible because the environment has not been adjusted yet (stairs, no ramps, etc).
Should you have anybody interested, please send me their CV, motivation letter and your own opinion about them (like a short description of their work should they volunteer in your organization, maybe your insight on the person – something special you would like to expose or things you’d think we should pay attention to) until 25 July 2009. After I’ve gotten your emails, I will try to contact the candidates and possibly talk to the ones we chose in the first round of selection together with the Kindergarten, of course.
For more details, please, contact Elena Smagliy esmagliy@ngo.dn.ua
EURC “Social Partnership”
www.ngo.dn.ua
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