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VILLA KULTURBUNT- Das Leben in einem Asylbewerberzentrum
Start date: Oct 1, 2015, End date: Sep 30, 2016 PROJECT  FINISHED 

The asylum centre ‘Belle Vue’ (Belgian Red Cross) hosts up to 100 residents from different cultures, nationalities and religions. The mission of the Red Cross is the administration of the centre as well as the reception and the support of refugees in their difficult situation. It is the aim to provide a safe home to the residents during their asylum procedure. 20 staff members perform several duties to provide support for the residents; that is to say social and medical support as well as entertainment in addition to answering everyday life questions of residents. We decided to participate in EVS in order to give young people the opportunity to get in contact with other cultures. By means of the EVS, we would like to give young people the opportunity to expand their intercultural horizon and to get to know the life of a refugee in a Belgian asylum centre as well as to get a closer look into their everyday life. Our team has some experience in the reception of European volunteers. Since February 2011, we participate in EVS. Our volunteer this year is called Carmen Martinez Belmonte, she comes from Murcia, Spain, and she is 23 years old. Our partner organisation for this project is ‘Ayuntamiento De Murcia’, which has a lot of experience in sending young people abroad in the EVS framework. The sending organisation and we are going to perform all administrative and logistic steps in mutual agreement. We will settle all important matters with the volunteer to prepare her for her stay. Concerning the selection of the volunteer, one criterion was especially important: The volunteer has to be open-minded regarding other people and foreign cultures. In addition, she should have a particular interest in the topics refuge, asylum, and migration. The realisation of the EVS in our project increases the individual learning performance of the volunteer (knowledge, life experience, and attitude), employability, the sense of initiative and entrepreneurship (implementation of personal projects), self-empowerment and self-esteem, foreign language competences (German and French), the intercultural awareness, and active participation in society (a lot of networking). Furthermore, we would like to mention that the volunteers get a lot of space for their creativity. The volunteer will get in contact with principles/methodologies of acceptance, empathy, openness, etc. up to intercultural sensitiveness and communication, conflict and emotional management, and professional distance. These professional approaches will prepare her for her future working life. As the main objective of the centre is the support of asylum seekers, this is going to be the main task of the volunteer, i. e. she will perform determined duties in the basic daily work (provision of meals, distribution of bed linen and hygiene articles, reception service,…). The creative care of asylum seekers in their everyday life is also an important objective of the centre. This happens by the means of several entertaining activities. In this area lies a key aspect for the volunteer. Concerning this topic, there are no limitations to the creativity and fantasy of the volunteer. Activities take place inside the asylum centre as well as outside. The line-up of the activities involves sports, culture, language lessons, computer lessons, manufacturing or even long-term projects, in which the asylum seeker is strengthened as an independent person. The volunteers can take part in several activities, or they have the possibility to become more active and implement their own ideas in the form of activities. There is also the possibility to develop and implement a certain project. In doing so, the volunteers may make use their own interests and competences.

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