Hello everyone!

With this article, I want to share with you what EVS is and what the Erasmus + program is, as well as the part of my exhibition held at my university in Adana (Turkey), where I personally passed on my EVS experience from Croatia and presented what I was doing there and why this program exists and what it wants to achieve in Croatia.

First of all, I would like to thank those who participated in my event. You’ve heard pretty much about our experiences full of fun stories. I hope that we inspired you with our photo exhibition and I hope that all of you will soon be registered for EVS.

When it is said “Erasmus plus”, most people think about students on exchange programs.  But Erasmus Plus is not just a university program. It offers more opportunities for mobility of students who want to learn more in the areas of education, various training courses as well as youth and sports. If you are a young person and you are interested in a particular topic in which you would like to improve your knowledge and skills, this is a great thing for you. Their trainings and youth exchanges are organized across Europe to help young people learn more about working with other young people from other countries and cultures, to create local policies and strategies, learn how to tackle problems in all areas, etc…And if you are interested in some project you can find in every open contest all information about the age of the participants and the criteria that they must fulfill and all other important information that you need for registration.

There are many topics and many options. One of the sites where you can find more information about these projects is the Urban Youth Web site (the organization  I come to) where calls for various training and projects are published, as well as Salto-Youth. Mostly all expenses (accommodation, food and transport) are covered. Sometimes there is a fee for participating in a project that you have to pay but is symbolic.

I learned about this program when my friend sent me a link to a website that announced that they were looking for project participants in Zagreb (Croatia) within the EVS program.  Okay, but what is EVS? I had no idea, nor did I hear about it. After some little research, I realized that this program was designed for me.

EVS – European Voluntary Service – Is a European Union program where you work on a various tasks in an organization where you volunteer for at least 2 weeks and a maximum of one year. They provide you with accommodation, food, transportation, and pocket money. This is a great way to taste the life abroad. I was drawn to this thanks to previous experience in working with Erasmus. The EVS program supports the participation of young people in various forms of volunteering activities both in the European Union and beyond. Such projects include young volunteers in nonprofit activities for the benefit of countries outside the country of their residence.

By signing up for these programs you will discover new cultures, meet local people and people from other countries, improve English skills and have more confidence and become an independent person.

More details on EVS and Erasmus + can be found here: https://urbanamladez.hr/evs-column/evs-general-information-conditions/

I signed up without thinking a second. That meant a lot to me. I have lived my dream again -Erasmus- I’ve experienced different cultures, traveled all over Europe, improved my skills, learned how to write news articles and perform interviews, write and implement projects, engage in PR within the organization, learn how to hold dance trainings and many more.

Croatia is one of the EU countries which is the least involved in Erasmus plus program. This is a result of the lack of youth mobility in Croatia. With EVS project “Youth mobility Cro-EU” we want to contribute to increasing the mobility of Croatian youth in the European Union and beyond. The reason why we want to implement this project is that Urban youth is developing in the direction of promoting the mobility of young people from 2014. Further more, all Urban youth members are passionate about education, studying, volunteering, meeting with other cultures, exchanging experiences and traveling.

Objective of the projects are:

For local community:
To raise rate of Croatian youth mobility by informing and involving them in various educational, work related, volunteering and traveling opportunities.

For volunteers:
To give international volunteers non-formal education and working experience connected to project management, event management, social media management, public relations and multimedia.
To improve international volunteers level of key competences and skills, with particular regard to their relevance for the labour market.

Since 2016, Urban youth hosts volunteers from the EVS (European Volunteer Service) program. During this program, volunteers help the organization with local activities and projects, but also develop and run their own projects. Each of them can choose the theme and activity that interests him, independently or with the help of  organization if it’s necessary.

On our website https://urbanamladez.hr/ you can see what our volunteers do.

At the end of your volunteer experience you get Youthpass. Youthpassis is a European tool for recognizing non-formal and informal learning in youth work. It helps in monitoring the development of the participants in eight competencies: communication in the mother tongue, communication in foreign languages, mathematical competence and basic competences in science and technology, digital competence, cultural awareness and expression, social and civic competence, sense of initiative and entrepreneurship, learning to learn.

By experiencing this unique experience, I can only tell you that you should never give up. You may not always be satisfied with everything, you will have both bad and good days, but if you really want something you will be strong enough to find strength and look for new and exciting goals and I assure you that this will be one of the best experiences of your life.

 

Photo Exhibition My EVS- AGH Fotoğraf Sergim

 

If you have any questions about exhibition or EVS programme, don’t hesitate to contact us at  urbanamladez@gmail.com 

Follow our events on: facebook.com/urbanamladez/

Link of the event: https://www.facebook.com/events/246387006037803/?active_tab=about

This article is a part of EVS project “Cro – EU – Planet Earth” funded by European Union. Objective of our project is to inform Croatian youth and involve them in various educational, work related, volunteering and traveling opportunities. This event is just one of many to be organized! If you want to be updated on various opportunities Planet Earth has to offer please subscribe to our mailing list by sending us email on urbanamladez@gmail.com with title “Subscribe” and put in your name and surname and year of birth.