Tallinn Children’s House (for Russian-speaking volunteer)
Location: Tallinn, Estonia
Period: 03/09/2017 – 02/06/2017
Deadline: 27 February 2017
Tallinn Children’s Home is looking for a motivated volunteer who is able to speak Russian and wants to help children as well as mothers to gain self-confidence and build stronger and reliable relationships.
Tallinn Children’s Home opened its doors on 1 January 2001 being a mixed- care social welfare institution in Tallinn and Estonia’s largest children’s home, offering various services to about 500 children in the course of a year. Tallinn Children’s Home consists of 13 different units/centres.
Its main objective is to ensure a safe and secure growing environment for children and young people without parental care and to support families with disabled children and difficulties in coping.
The institution provides a number of different social services, with the biggest and most substantial of the provided services being the substitute home service.
Tallinn Children’s Home is divided in 13 parts: one of them is: Shelter for Children and another is Shelter for Mothers and Children, both of which have hosted EVS volunteers already since year 2005.
1. Since 2002 Shelter for Children exists as a centre for children at risk. In this institution 9 specialists work in 24 h shifts and there are 14 places for children at risk who have no support from their parents, normally in the age of 4 to 18 years. The main objective of the institution is to provide psychological and practical support and generally take care of children.
2. The Shelter for Mothers and Children began its activity on 1 July 2003. The Shelter provides assistance and protection for mothers with their children whose life or health is at risk in their place of residence. This shelter can host maximum 18 parsons. The average time spent in the shelter has been 3.5 months whereas the longest period has been 11 months. Reasons for seeking assistance is mainly due to problems with housing, family relations and domestic violence. The main objective for the Shelter is to
protect mothers and children but also to help mothers to get back their self- confidence and independency.
At the Shelter for Children, all children attend school in the town during day time. Participation of motivated EVS volunteer is seen as an exciting innovative element refreshing the daily routine and bringing additional educational value to the pedagogical process. The main idea involving a long term EVS volunteer is on one hand to provide assistance and support local personnel in daily work, particularly in running various educational and free time activities for the children; on the other hand to provide international experience by practicing foreign languages and intercultural learning, both for children and local personnel. At the same time it gives valuable experience to the volunteer in the field of social and youth work in Estonian context.
The EVS volunteer will be carrying out
the following tasks:
• Looking after the children and helping staff in teaching them different useful skills (20%);
• Running additional educational activities in the house using its own facilities (20%)
• Teaching children foreign languages through joined games; songs, sport, any other activities indoor and outdoor, which the EVS volunteer will be running (20%);
• Presenting his/ her home country and its culture as a part of intercultural learning (10%)
• Arranging children’s outings, e.g. culture visits, excursions, hikes, picnics, etc. (10%)
• Playing with children (10%);
• Assisting local staff with all other required activities in the Shelter and other departments of the Children’s Home if needed (
10%).
Another task of the volunteer can be to establish contacts with similar institutions in his/her home country in order to have mutually beneficial co-operation between institutions in the future.
The Shelter for Mothers and Children hopes to find an energetic young volunteer who wishes to help these mothers and their children. The volunteer will be a good example to the mothers living in their problem-situation, helping them to get back optimism and self-confidence; volunteer could be a bridge between mother and her child motivating them to spend more valuable time together and to appreciate their mother-child relationship. Volunteer is expected to organise activities for them to spend more time
together (playing, organising events, visiting places outside the shelter etc).
Main activities proposed to EVS volunteer:
• running different workshops for the mothers and children in the Shelter (e.g. drawing, handicraft,
singing, sewing) 25%;
• helping to organise and search different possibilities to expose the works or the achievements made by the mothers and their children in the Shelter (e.g. exhibitions) 10%;
• introducing her/his culture and running cultural evenings as a part of intercultural learning 10%;
• organising events in the Shelter: (e.g. movie evenings, reading books, teaching his/her mother tongue, cooking with the mothers and their children etc.) 20%;
•helping to organise Estonian National holidays and birthdays of mothers and their children 15%;
• organising outdoor activities (using recourses of beautiful Nõmme nature – a perfect place for skiing in winter, picnics or cycling in summer) 20%.
Volunteer will be encouraged to propose his/her personal projects/initiatives related to the theme of this EVS project which can be supported by the receiving and coordinating organisation.
Volunteer can take part in local as well as in international training activities related to his/her service.
According to volunteer’s skills and project’s needs priority tasks and detailed working schedule
(including holidays, breaks, etc.) will be worked our together with the tutor
and office staff.
The working hours will be around 7 hours a day from 10:00 or 11:00 a.m., it depends on agreement.
In order to apply for our open EVS placements in Estonia, please fill in the EstYES application form that you can download from here: http://www.estyes.ee/en/opportunities-2/european-voluntary-service-evs/open-placements/ and send it to evs@estyes.ee for selection process until 27th of February 2017.