Projecto Polaco de voluntariado - Arte e Cultura

2006-PL-30
Art & partnership as the way for personal development of children and youth

Approval Date	04/05/2006
Validity Date	04/05/2009
Project type	Long-term
Location	Gietrzwald (Poland)
Host organsition	Gminny Osrodek Kultury w Gietrzwaldzie
Partnership	The host project is open to working with any partner
Inclusion	-
Theme 1	Art and culture
Theme 2	Social exclusion (in general)
Target group 1	Youth and children
Target group 2	Local community

Project environment

Municipality Center of Culture in Gietrzwald (GOK) runs three Culture Houses and three libraries (in Biesal, Gietrzwald, and Szabruk). In each of these places our main aim is to foster the creative development of children and youth - through self-realisation, self-education (based on the idea of partnership), shaping pro-social attitudes, above all responsibility (teaching responsibility) and tolerance. GOK conducts a range of activities to protect our cultural heritage. Particular attention is paid to the oral tradition. We organise meetings with residents of the villages, where during the opening of exhibitions of family photographs, documents and mementoes, villagers speak about their roots and their memories. The material effects of these meetings are recorded on CD-ROM. GOK organises summer and winter holidays for poor children, helps in preparing for lessons and homework, teaches children's rights, citizens rights, interpersonal communication, exhibitions (photographs, paintings, icons), workshops (capoeira, interpersonal communication, etc), publishes a local newspaper (bi-weekly Gazeta Gietrzwaldzka with a print run of 500 copies), runs a tourist information office. The local community embraced in the municipality consists od 5200 inhabitants. All live in villages (the largest village has a population 900). Very few are farmers, the majority work in Olsztyn (commuting to work). There is a group of teachers and employees of the local government. Schools - three primary schools and one lower secondary school, pupils of upper secondary school travel to Olsztyn. The average income is higher than in the neighbouring municipalities, the unemployment rate is 29% (lower than in the region local area). The municipality is located in a very attractive area from the point of view of tourism. There are forests, lakes and numerous agrotourist farms. This small municipality is visited by approximately one million tourists annually. These are above all pilgims, since the Sanctuary of the Holy Virgin Mary located in Gietrzwald is often visited by pilgrims. Youth who are without work, a profession, and money, have no idea how to spend their free time; they experiment with drugs, they have alcohol problems, they do not see any future in the place where they live. There is big conflict between adults and youths. Adults usually do not try to understand youths. Youth do not trust adults and do not try to reach agreement with them. Youth needs the support of adults. Children - a large group of children is neglected due to economic reasons and/or incapability of parents to bring up their children. Some have serious problems at school

Tasks

The main reason of inviting volunteers is a desire to break down resistance to "others" and break down social stereotypes of ways of functioning in a group. Volunteers as an independent people from outside, connected with different culture, will help us in braking down barriers and overcoming difficulties with individual and social functioning of children and youth. We expect volunteers to make use of their own methods of alternative artistic work with children and youth. At the same time we expect that through building new relationships with children, youths, local communities, GOK workers, students, a new quality of form and methods will arise. In the framework of co-operation of a whole group, besides become acquaintance with the language and the culture of the region, we will be able to share satisfaction resulting from the process of artistic creation in the form of presentation before the whole of the local community. Volunteers will be part of the team of employers of the Culture Centre (6 people), who will work with children and youths. Pedagogical students from the local university will also be part of the team (5 people). The team, run by a young pedagogue, will help volunteers to learn about their target groups, children and youth. Team meetings will be held - discussions about what and how things are going on. Volunteers will initiate step by step there activities, supported in turn by the team. The team will help volunteers to acquaint themselves with the community (parents, habits, customs, traditions, system of norms, values, convictions, areas of existing conflicts, key persons). In the beginning of their work for GOK, the volunteers will take part in activities being currently under way and cyclical meetings with the children and the youth organised by GOK's staff and Polish volunteers. The volunteers from abroad will act as observers, getting acquainted with the children and the youth, rules and regulations by which GOK operates, its location and surroundings and local customs and habits. It will help the volunteers to work out their individual methods and applying them in the future work with GOK. Moreover, with the help of our friendly and helpful staff, the volunteers will be able to apply their methods in their individual projects for the youth and children. Through their attitude and genuineness, i.e. by example, volunteers will develop individuality in children and youth, beginning with a feeling of influence over their own lives, improvement of self-esteem and creativity. This activity involves breaking down stereotypes and transgressing socially accepted norms. Volunteers improvise arrange creativity activity of groups and individuals in the wider meaning of art. They will abolish myths about creativity, understood through standard categories of artistic works (i.e. "nice" paintings, drawings, songs). We expect volunteers to take up a range of activities and initiatives, thereby freeing the imagination and creativity, which are fundamentally connected with natural rhythm, as and attribute of the process (changes, going forward). In this process the most significant are the initiatives of children and youth, (adults do not impose the final form and shape of the work on the child - volunteers unconditionally accept and support the child in his/her efforts and stands by him/her during the work). We encourage partnership between children and volunteers. Volunteers will elaborate constructive ways of resolving conflict. Individual and group activities, and individual tasks are interrelated, they are not separated. The principle of partnership (without authoritarian leadership) in accordance with the needs and possibilities of the children, will guarantee balance. A special responsibility will be to lead the process to a material effect and present it, together with the children/youth, to the local community.

Target group

We would like to invite people who have motivation for work with children and youth. They should have good communication skills, and creative approach. We are counting on independent people, with unconventional interests, passion, artistic talent, who are able to brake down cultural barriers and who realize their own ideas and projects. Volunteers should be genuine in their attitude, values, standards, convictions, making use of alternative methods of work with children and youth, creative and responsible. Gender of volunteers is not important. Age between 18 and 25.

Special needs

Contact Point

Organisation: Gminny Osrodek Kultury w Gietrzwaldzie

Address: 32

Postal code: 11-036

Town: Gietrzwald

Country: Poland

E-mail: gok@gietrzwald.pl

Phone: +48 89 512 32 90

Fax: +48 89 512 31 18

Contact: Mr SEBASTIAN JAKUBOWSKI