Project environment
The project takes place in the
Centre of Leisure Time in Gelnica.
Some activities may take place in the local area of the town Gelnica.
The town Gelnica is a small town
in the eastern Slovakia. Because of its geography Gelnica is the centre of
Hnilec Valley. There are about 6000 inhabitants in Gelnica. There is one primary
school, one grammar school and an art school in the town. The centre of the town
is formed by few small shops, supermarkets, groceries, basic services and a
small Tesco. There is a town hall, the Mining museum, hospital, fire and a
police station, catholic, greek-catholic and protestant churches. There are few
small evening bars and a disco in Gelnica and in a nearby town.
A beautiful area in the
surrounding of Gelnica gives various possibilities for summer and winter sports.
We have many tourist and cyclo roads and a natural lake here, too. There are
cross-country skiing roads in Gelnica and its surrounding and few skilifts with
very good skiing conditions in the area of 30 km around Gelnica. There are
ice-hockey and football stadiums, multi-functional and tennis courts, school
gyms and a small school swimming pool. There is a railway and bus station, too.
The town is situated 45 km from the central city of the eastern Slovakia -
Kosice, which offers many other sport, cultural and entertainment possibilities
(skilifts, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, cinemas, theatres, shopping
centres, restaurants, music clubs and discos). The town Gelnica is situated
about 400 km from Bratislava - the capital city of Slovakia, 630 km from Prague
- Czech Republic, 490 km from Vienna - Austria, 300 km from Budapest - Hungary,
220 km from Krakow - Poland.
Geographical position of the
town on the East of Slovakia, Roma social problems and poor economic situation
of the town cause an unemployment rate about 20%. Children, the young and the
adults have many financial problems, they have very few possibilities to find
work, to travel abroad. The majority has an average or under-average standard of
living. There is a Roma community in the town, too. Many children have education
and behaviour problems, their families live in very poor living conditions.
The Centre of Leisure Time is
situated in a very nice old villa almost in the middle of the town. The building
of the Centre consists of two bigger rooms for sport and cultural events, as
well as for dance clubs, and of four small classrooms where IT clubs, language
clubs and environmental clubs work. There is also a large garden with a tennis
court, garden chess board, fireplace and few nice places for outdoor activities
in the Centre of Leisure Time.
Activities of the Centre
We closely cooperate with the
town council, local and regional schools and kindergardens. The Centre of
Leisure Time organizes together with the town council of Gelnica public cultural
or sport events such as Gelnická desiatka - the cycling competition, Gelnický
šlapajcug - huge touristic day for almost 500 people from the region, St.
Nicolas day or Childrens ´ day. We usually help the schools by servicing or
organizing sport events (football, volleyball, handball or table tennis matches,
swimming or running competitions) and we are responsible for organizing school
subject competitions (history, geography, biology, language, singing
competitions). Therefore, the volunteer may be helpful on various events taking
place not only in the Centre of Leisure Time but also at schools in our region
or outdoors in the town, at football stadium or other sport places.
Description of the organisation
The Centre of Leisure Time is a
local public organisation in Gelnica. We have 50 years old history in the town
and region and we have been creating different conditions for organizing
educational, training and recreational activities during the whole year for
children: kindergarten children, primary school pupils, grammar school students
and for the young untill 30 years old, including one group of disabled people,
street dancers, mothers on maternity leave with their children and children from
the Roma community in our town. These all are our target group we generally work
with.
Our leisure time activities are
divided into: 1. Regular activities in various clubs, such as sports (tennis,
table tennis, football, handball, martial art and gymnastics), computers and
internet, dance (HIP HOP, break dance, latino, black bottom dance and
majorettes), languages (English, German) and nature/environmental clubs (we have
about 553 members at the moment); 2. Organization and service of many events
(for example Halloween, St. Nicolas day, Easter day), sport competitions,
exhibitions and trips for children; 3. Holiday activities such as summer camps,
sport competitions or special workshops; 4. Individual work with talented
children, supporting those with fewer opportunities (Roma community and disabled
people); 5. Pedagogical supervising in the Centre of Leisure Time on holidays
and weekends.
We are open from 9 a.m. till 18
p.m. from Monday to Friday and from 13 p.m. till 17 p.m. on Saturdays. Our
members visit the Centre of Leisure Time mostly in the afternoon hours. Mornings
are usually spent by administration work or preparations for clubs and events.
In the afternoon, children come to their clubs to the Centre of Leisure Time.
Some clubs work outside at schools or in kindergardens. We are also open on
school holidays but not on bank (state) holidays.
The organizational structure of
the Centre of Leisure Time is formed by the department of sport, culture,
natural environment, languages and department for Roma minorities. 4 internal
pedagogical workers and 2 administration and service employees stay daily in the
Centre of Leisure Time. Together with about 30 external workers we are
responsible for the organisation of all clubs, sport and cultural events of the
Centre of Leisure Time and for some public events of the town.
Proposed activities for the
volunteer
In terms of learning
opportunities we can offer to volunteers free Slovak and German language
courses. In the case that a volunteer will be a non IT-skilled person we can
offer a free basic IT-course. A whole working time period of a volunteer in the
Centre of Leisure Time will be a so called running "Leisure Time Animator
course" for the volunteer as he will learn many ways how to spend leisure time
with children or the young of any age. A volunteer will also attend On-arrival
and Mid-term meetings organized by our National agency. A volunteer will meet
another volunteers in Slovakia. He also may meet them in his free time.
The volunteer will be integrated
in our internal team of pedagogical workers and he/she will assist us while
organizing clubs. He/she may choose among English language, sport or Roma clubs
where he/she will organize games, activities. He/she will meet children,
communicate with them, prepare materials for them, plan interesting events,
competitions for them, too. The volunteer will also assist on our common events
or outdoor activities for example balls, children days, bigger sport events and
competitions. He/she will help with the presentation of members on our events,
giving out food, preparing or copying materials, organizing indoor or outdoor
games. The volunteer may organize trips for children to the cimena or to
swimming pool, trips to the countryside, cleaning any part of the town, he/she
may work on his own small and short-time projects including our children with
the aim to motivate them for doing anything meaningful but not staying on the
street on their own. The volunteer will also be helpful in the computer class.
He can do basic IT work with children like copying, printing, designing our
posters and leaflets we often use for propagation of cultural events. In the
case he will not be computer skilled he will just supervise children and this
will be a possibility for him to learn computers and to use internet also for
his private purpose, to communicate with his family, friends and sending
organisation. The IT skilled volunteer will help with computers, web-site, IT
problems, creating materials for clubs or our activities, all these depending on
skills and knowledge of the volunteer.
According to the interests,
hobbies and abilities of a volunteer, he/she will be able to create his/her own
program. In any case there will be a lot of space for individual creativity and
fantasy to develop new projects and find attractive themes regarded to the
interests of young people, where the volunteer can perfect themselve. The role
of the volunteer should mainly be to offer his/her special skills to children
and young people, connected to and co-ordinated with the usual program of the
CLT.
Volunteers who will work in
Gelnica in the summer period will help during the summer camps. We usually
organize on-site summer camps. This means that children stay in the CLT or
outside of the town with us daily from 8 a.m. till 16 p.m. only. In the summer
time we organize sport days for not-professional players: children, the young
and adults. The volunteer may help to organize these events but he may also take
part in them as a team player.
On working days the volunteer
will have a break or a chance to go for lunch with us to the near schol canteen.
Our workers get cooked lunch at the nearby grammar school every day except
weekends and holidays. The volunteer will work 6 hours a day, 5 days a week with
following two days off. But working hours can be arranged flexibly as well.
There will be always contact with the English speaking supervisor and the
mentor, even in leisure time when help and support is needed.
Motivation and EVS experience
Our organisation was a sending
organisation of the EVS under the project of the town Gelnica few years ago. We
placed successfully one volunteer in Italy. In the schol year 2010/2011 we
hosted one spanish volunteer for 6 months. At the moment we host two volunteers:
ani talian girl for 10 months and a dutsch boy for 11 months. We employ young
English speaking people who can communicate with a volunteer. We can offer an
interesting work with children and young people and a good experience to foreign
volunteers. Our and as well the volunteer´s work includes sport activities,
indoor and outdoor activities, cultural and sport events. We can introduce him
or her our culture, language, our country and people, that will increase his
intercultural and European awareness.
We would like to expand the
possibilities of the Centre of Leisure Time by having a volunteer who will bring
a new cultural dimension into our organisation. We live in a region with very
few working, social and economic possibilities. Children and young people have
few possibilities to travel abroad or to learn about new nations, their cultures
and foreign languages. We would like to either support those people by sending
them abroad by the EVS or to host a volunteer who would bring that missing
foreign-intercultural element to our organisation. His activities would touch
almost all members of the Centre of Leisure Time as we would like to integrate
him into all our activities with children.
The main role of the Centre of
Leisure Time is to create meaningful leisure time activities for children and
the young in our town. The most important is to have the young in various clubs
and activities but not on the street among crime and drugs. A foreign volunteer
should catch interest of more young people who will spend their time more
meaningfuly in the Centre of Leisure Time. Therefore, we know that the
intercultural element of a volunteer will help also on the local level (clubs,
schools, town events) where he will be intergrated.
Finally, hosting a volunteer in
Gelnica region and his good promotion in this area will be a good way of
motivating Slovak young people to participate in the EVS abroad through us as a
sending organisation.
Contact Point
Organisation: Centrum volneho casu
Address: Slovenská 46
Postal code: 056 01
Town: Gelnica
Country: Slovakia
E-mail: cvcgelnica@cvcgl.edu.sk
Phone: +421534821491
Contact: Ms. Miroslava Petríková
The Centre of leisure time has accreditation as sending and hosting organisation
of EVS till 2013
In the school year 2011/2012 we host two
volunteers:
JURRE DE JONG from Netherland
Jurre
arrived to the Centre of Leisure Time by car from Netherland, the country of
tulips and wind mills, where he worked with mentaly disabled people and they
were producing promotion materials. He works in the Centre from the 5th Septembra 2011 and
he is responsible for computer and sport clubs. Our children meet him in Internetclub,
table tennis club, florball or futball in the gym of the primary school in
Gelnica. He helps from time to time in the Open club, where he prepares
activities with Roma children and sometimes he also visits English lessons with
our second italian volunteer. Moreover, Jurre actualizes our website, he adds
photos, leaflets and other documents.
CATERINA BACILIERI from Italy
Cate
came to Slovakia from Verona, Italy, from the town famous by the story of Romeo and
Juliet. Cate started her EVS in the Centre on the 1st October
2011 straight after finishing her university studies in Italy. She studied
French and Spanish
and in the Centre she assists in English clubs and she teaches Italian in her
own club. She likes learning languages and together with Jurre she studies
Slovak language. Children meet cate on english lessond in the Centre and in both
kindergardens. She speaks English in our language clubs, prepares games for
children where they have to communicate in English with her.
In
the school year 2010/2011 we hosted
LUNA MARIA BERNAL POLO from Spain
Luna
started her EVS on 1st of March 2011 and she worked in the Centre till the end
of August 2011. During her EVS she cooperated with workers of the Centre in our
existing clubs for example Open club, dance clubs, Spanish. She taught our
children dancing Spanish dances and jugglery with Cariocas. In English clubs and
with all other children she communicated in English, she was helping during
sport and cultural events. First two months she was learning Slovak one hour
daily, later two hours weekly. In March she joined an On-Arrival training of
IUVENTA in Terchová that was organized for all volunteers from abroad working in
Slovakia. In the middle of the EVS she joined a Mid-term-training in Špania
dolina close to Banská Bystrica. These trainings helped her to meet other
volunteers from foreign countries and to find friends here in Slovakia. During
the EVS Luna was getting her pocket money monthly, accomodation and food was
free for her, travel costs from Spain and back was paid to Luna in the amount of 90%
from total amount of travel costs.
The same
conditions have all slovak young people who would like to travel abroad as
volunteers through the project of European voluntary service.
The Centre of Leisure Time in Gelnica is also a
sending organisation. This means that we can send young people from our
region abroad. In the case you are interested to learn new language or improve
your English, to gain new working experience and professional skills in any
country of EU (or other),
if you want to visit new country, get to know its culture and to live with its
people for the period from 2 - 12 months and that all free of charge, please do
not hesitate to contact the Centre of Leisure Time in Gelnica. We are ready to
help you how to apply for the project, how to find a hosting organisation (HO),
how to apply for the place in the organisation and we prepare you for your EVS
abroad.
Contact: Ms. Petríková
Centrum voľného času v Gelnici, Slovenská ulica
46, 056 01 Gelnica
tel. nr. +421 53 4821 491, email: cvcgelnica@cvcgl.edu.sk
„Tento projekt bol financovaný s podporou Európskej komisie. Tento dokument
reprezentuje výlučne názor
autora a Komisia nezodpovedá za akékoľvek použitie informácií
obsiahnutých v tomto dokumente.“
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