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EVS - Expand your horizons in Slovenia
Start date: May 1, 2016, End date: Oct 31, 2017 PROJECT  FINISHED 

In this project "Expand your horizons in Slovenia" (in short: XPND!) we want to create new non-formal learning opportunities for early school leavers. Too many young people leave school prematurely running a high risk of being unemployed and socially marginalised. Fighting rising levels of unemployment, particularly among young people, has become one of the most urgent tasks for European governments (Erasmus+ Programme Guide -Part A and Europe 2020 Strategy). The target group for the project is young people with fewer opportunities who are facing difficult psychosocial situations, social exclusion, disabilities and special needs, health problems, volunteers with migrant background or other cultural obstacles, NEET situations.We want to offer four young people (18-21 years old, boys and girls) a possibility to live and work in Slovenia for a period of 59 days (short term EVS). We will send them in teams of two persons each, which gives them a higher feeling of safety as they can support each other in their native language. One team will start before the summer and one team after the summer. The aim is to give them a lot of new and positive experiences, in order to discover their talents, empower their competences and to raise their self esteem. Living and working in a multicultural environment will broaden their horizons, stimulate them to risk a step out of their comfort zone and give them a great opportunity to become aware of stereotype thinking and to work on some of their challenges, trying to live a more healthy lifestyle with a good day-night rythm, regular meals, getting tasks and responsibilities, get rid of some bad habits...Being far away from home and from their peer networks will give young people an opportunity to drop some social masks and to try different ways how to respond and act in social situations. With the good preparation phase and with the support of the reinforced mentorship we will make these processes more conscious, stimulate self-reflection and support the integration of the new experiences into the positive self esteem. The social experiences that have positive influence on the self esteem of young people will also indirectly strengthen the feeling of being a part of the society, which is the first step towards more intense and more constructive social inclusion.The volunteers will be able to try themselves in many different activities from handicrafts and building with wood and concrete to workshops for children and adults with mental disability. In this way they will get the opportunity to strengthen skills or to get new competences and to discover where they already shine and where they still want to achieve more. An individual non-formal learning plan will be made for each volunteer and we will take care of the balance between the basic feeling of safety and combating new challenges. What will feel as an obstacle for a young person before the project, should become a challenge that they can master during the project. Both the Hosting organisation and the Sending organisation are very experienced working with European Voluntary Service for this target group. We are convinced that this kind of experiences will help them to become more active in the society and that it will increase their chances on the labour marked, either going back to school and finish their secondary education or getting a job.
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