1. Project environment:Youth Office of Municipality of Prijepolje is located in heart of small town Prijepolje. Population of Prijepolje is around 45 000 inhabitants, where half of it is leving in town center. Prijepolje is beautiful town with two river in city center. Also it is popular as city of two religion, where people live in friendly harmony. Prijepolje is located near border with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. It takes 3 hours from Prijepolje to reach capitals of these two countries. Captial of Serbia, Belgrade is 300 km away from Prijepolje. Town has great train and bus connection.

Town is surounded with beautiful hills and forests, so hiking and picnics are typical for this area.

Prijepolje is great town for hosting volunteers because people are friendly and welcome all town guests as they own. Near Youth Office there are 4 schools, so in the middle of the day town is crowded of youth. There is around 9000 youth in town area. There are various activities organised for youth in Prijepolje.

Good thing is that all important institutions (Hospital, Police station, Fire station, Schools, Municipality Building, Pharmacies) are on the most 15 minutes away from Youth Office and apartament where volunteers will be hosted.

Markets and regular shops are not so expensive, and elementary things are more cheaper then in any EU countries.

A lot of usefull information, helpful links and recommendation related with Prijepolje could be find on Municipality web site www.opstinaprijepolje.rs

2. Proposed activities for EVS volunteers:

Hosting international volunteer will bring new culture, new experience and fresh atmosphere Youth Office of Municipality Prijepolje. The volunteer will broaden children’s horizon and motivate them to think about doing EVS abroad and travelling. He/she also will raise intercultural awareness among the children and the staff and will give new reason for the children to visit Youth Office. Volunteer will be first contact with people from another country for majority of youth in Prijepolje. So because of this, volunteer will leave strong impact on developing youth work in our office. The volunteer will have good support to find best activities for him/herself.

Staff is consisting of young empowered people for this kind of activities, and the most of staff’s activities are focused on volunteers progress. YOP staff has experience with local volunteers, especially new ones, who comes often after finished faculty and joining YOP community. Thanks to this process of working with new volunteers, YOP staff gained enough experience to accept new volunteers and make their adaptation more comfortable and flexible which makes new volunteers to fit into team. This method will be used during work with new EVS volunteers but only with more effort and intercultural methods.

EVS in Prijepolje is a great opportunity for the volunteer to get to know Serbian country and culture. Beside Serbian culture, volunteer will have chance to feel presence of Bosnian and Montenegro culture, because of location of this town. It is also a chance for the young volunteer to develop his/her skills and personality through activities and helping office activities.

Volunteer would have chance to learn Serbian language and professor of Serbian language will take Serbian lessons 4 times per week in first months. After volunteer’s progress with Serbian language, classes will be more adapted to volunteer needs, so hours of classes will probably be reduced.

Regular activities in the Youth Office Prijepolje are preparing and leading all kind of youth workshops with volunteers, drawing, playing music, preparing theatre plays, organising various events which are gathering youth, playing movies, supporting sport teams by promoting their games, developing partnerships with local, national and European organisations.

In the summer, volunteers are organising youth festivals, concerts and sport tournaments.

The EVS volunteer activities would be:

- organising and supporting workshops, seminars, festivals for youth (25%)
- organising youth leisure time activities (sports, games, movies, music etc) (25%);
- presenting his/her country and culture as a part of the intercultural learning (15%);
- teaching foreign language to the children if it is possible (15%);
- Assisting Office staff if needed (creating community campaigns, designing and preparing promotional material, leaflets, posters… etc (20%)
- The volunteer will have the possibility to organise his/her own trainings pending on his/her skills

Developing intercultural dialogue between EVS volunteer and youth from Prijepolje will open many doors in minds of passive youth.

3. Volunteer profiles and recruitment process:

Youth Office Prijepolje would like to host volunteers who are motivated to work with youth. Previous experience is not necessary. Volunteer is expected to be flexible, patient, tolerant, open-minded, good-hearted, responsible, friendly and helpful. We would like that volunteer is ready for action and ready to take initiatives and responsibility for it.

On our web site (www.mladiprijepolja.net), facebook page, and on the international youth networks (Youth Network for example) will be placed information about free place on the project for certain deadline. Volunteer will get special application form to fill in, which is the basis for the pre-selection. Upon reading application, and contacting Sending organisation, staff from Youth Office will arrange Skype meeting with potential volunteer and after it make final decision.
Staff of the host project chooses the volunteer, whose profile and interests match the best the proposed activities of the project.

All non selected volunteers will be informed and encouraged to apply for the next free vacant of Youth Office Prijepolje.

4. Number of volunteers hosted:

Youth Office of Prijepolje is ready to host three volunteers at the time

5. Risk prevention, protection and safety:

Youth Office of Municipality of Prijepolje will ensure:

- that the work of volunteer is safe and been assessed for risk
- that every effort is made that project meets high health and safety standards
- that the volunteer is trained and familiar with the volunteering work and have access to adequate safety equipment if needed
- that the volunteer will get all the practical and psychological support from the staff

Volunteer be introduced with our laws, customs and medical system. The volunteer will have the AXA-insurance. Prijepolje is small town, so apartment of volunteer or Youth Office where volunteer will work is about 10 – 15 minutes by walking to the hospital.
Upon arrival, we will prepare hosting event so volunteer could make friends even first day. Volunteer will have own mentor from Youth Office, so there will be always someone who will be responsible of volunteer needs.

Youth Office of Municipality of Prijepolje has become experienced organisation, especially in the field of youth volunteerism. After realising various types of projects, YOP gained enough experience and became one of the leaders of Youth Offices across Serbia. YOP developed volunteer programme called VoSoP (Volunteer Service of Municipality of Prijepolje) where working with numerous volunteers gathered a lot of positive experience. Thanks to VosoP programme, Youth Office of Prijepolje is now ready to start international volunteer projects. EVS programme is perfect solution, for Sending our volunteers abroad, and especially for hosting international volunteers in our community.
YOP volunteers have participated in 6 “Youth in Action” projects and among them there was one Contact Making Seminar related with EVS topic. Experience and contacts from this CMS were a trigger for applying for accreditation. Contacts from different part of Europe assure that YOP will have fruitful cooperation in EVS projects.
Small town Prijepolje is already known as town of volunteers, where our local volunteers are very active. Beside them, YOP had cooperation with International volunteer (from USA) which has had contributed in developing of our community projects. Positive experience from local and abroad volunteers is high motivation for participating in EVS projects.
Accredited organisation JUMP (SC) from Prijepolje is reliable partner of YOP. JUMP EVS experience is great backup and help in starting our EVS projects.
As small community, Prijepolje has a lot of passive youth. After last research, more then 90% of them do not have passport. That means that more then 7000 of youth never went abroad, or even meet a stranger. Sending volunteers abroad would mean a changing life of young people. Hosting abroad volunteers in Prijepolje will mean bringing diversity, intercultural experience in our small community. Coordinating EVS projects will gain a lot of experience for Youth Office and all volunteers in it.
EVS Accreditation would be great solution for bringing closer Europe to our community.
Coordinating EVS projects will help staying in contact with European partners, and developing International experience of Youth Office members.
Regarding type of sending organisations , YOP will emphasise cooperation with organisations working with youth and organisations leading by youth.
Youth Office of Municipality Prijepolje will ensure all necessary tasks prior sending volunteer abroad. Some of the tasks that will be ensured:- Good communication and good cooperation with project partners during EVS projects.
- Getting know all about hosting partners, their experience, about their projects, their hosting conditions and about programmes for volunteers

Selection process of sending volunteers would be developed in cooperation with hosting organisations based on mutual needs. Volunteers will be chosen based on their:
- CV
- Motivation letter or application form
- Interview

In the case of choosing volunteer before project, YOP will encourage volunteers to take active role in creating their project.

YOP has developed info center, so promotion of EVS projects will be transparent and majority of youth population will have chance to be informed about International EVS projects. Youth will have chance to find out about projects on web page (www.mladiprijepolja.net) and on local and national partners web pages, facebook page, Youth Office Info papers which are entering in public every 15 days.

YOP will try to find appropriate Hosting partners which will be inclusive so they can choose motivated person who is eager to learn and develop skills abroad.

In case those volunteers are interested to find EVS project, YOP staff will support volunteer in searching suitable partner organisation based on volunteer needs and preferences.

YOP will ensure that volunteers attend pre-departure trainings.

Administrative issues for sending volunteers:
YOP team will be well prepared for dealing with administrative issues. Serbia is in white Schengen list from end of 2009, so visa procedure is familiar for Serbian citizens.
In case of short term volunteering, citizens from Serbia do not need visa for period shorter than 3 month. In other way, all Serbian volunteers will have to have visa in their passport.

Volunteer will be informed about visa procedure and YOP will ensure with their host and coordinating partners to get all necessary information about needed documents for EVS volunteer. Depending of host country, YOP will contact host embassy and get all information that could be relevant for getting visa.
YOP staff would support volunteer in preparing all necessary documents for arranging visa. By contacting Host organization and National/Executive Agency YOP will ensure all supporting documents (invitation letter…).
YOP will plan enough amount of time to sort all administrative issues: communication with partners, communication with volunteers, assisting in collecting documents from volunteers and supporting letters from partners and NAs, embassy procedure and postal service time.
YOP will ensure that volunteer come safe and on time of starting own EVS activity.
Local transport of volunteer will be agreed with host organization and volunteer preference.

YOP will ensure that volunteer has arranged local transport in the place of staying.

YOP will ensure continuous contact with volunteer and hosting organisation. Prior sending volunteer, YOP will ensure plan for the first volunteer week with hosting organisation, so volunteer can be easily adjusted on new environment.
YOP will monitor EVS activity of their volunteers and ensure that they get all support and care from Host partners. YOP will also ensure that volunteers have language and training courses.

Our organization will take effort to find out if the volunteer is suffering or has suffered from a medical problem which can affect his/her participation in EVS activities.

Youth Office of Municipality of Prijepolje has good connection with respected NGOs from Serbia and the World. YOP is in constant cooperation with known organisations from Serbia: Group Let’s Belgrade, British Council, BalkanIDEA Novi Sad, Civic Initiatives Belgrade, E8 Belgrade…

Beside them, YOP has great connection all over Europe, and their volunteers had participated in 6 international projects within Youth in Action Programme. Staff members recently participated in projects in Finland, Latvia, Macedonia.

In Coordinating process, YOP will carefully choose future partners. YOP will try to gather partners on Contact making seminars, Youth Exchanges and Training Courses within Youth in Action programme. YOP will check profile of partner organization: background, previous experience in EVS, current projects, environment for volunteer, hosting conditions, motivation to host and to send volunteers, expected outcome of project, mentorship. We will also check how partners handle administrative issues, and programme issues which include their work in organization, pre departure trainings, and language courses.

Youth Office has very experienced youth workers who are familiar with Youth in Action Programme. In Youth Office was held seminar about promoting Youth in Action programme.

YOP will together with their partners handle application process, and fill out application form. Communication process will be held on internet.

Selection process of volunteer will be choosen together with partner organisation.
As coordinating organization, YOP will ensure that project is running on quality level, monitoring sending and hosting organisation. YOP will also help in ensuring all supporting documents which are needed for visa procedure.

YOP has organised and coordinated big projects, so YOP staff is ready for coordinating projects within YiA.

YOP will ensure that hosting organization has arranged suitable place for staying, local transport, programme for volunteer, mentor. YOP will consider or risk prevention details and inform Hosting organization what to do in case of emergency.

YOP will ensure that volunteers have obligatory AXA insurance.

YOP will manage preparing VISA documents for volunteers (explained in the text above)
YOP will encourage volunteers to fill out YOUTHPASS.

As coordinator on project, YOP will ensure that Activity agreement is filled and signed by all promoters on project. YOP will together with other partners complete activity agreement and make division of tasks of all promoters. Together with them will plan volunteers agenda and programme and sign it.

Youth Office of Municipality of Prijepolje is center for improving quality of young lifes by developing youth programs and providing inclusive support.Aims of Youth Office of Municipality of Prijeoplje by Local strategic plan of municipality Prijepolje for youth :

” Including youth in social actions by organising various youth actions, programmes, seminars and festivals
” Development of local community
” Respecting the differences
” Development of active citizenship through volunteer activism
” Increasing youth mobility
” Organising educational workshops
” Activating youth in community project
” Developing cooperation with all relevant institutions and partners from Serbia and the World
” Communicating with youth and listening their needs
” Providing technical, logistic, material and financial support to youth organisations from Prijepolje

YOP is designed to implement and to coordinate strategic document:Local Action Plan.

You can find strategic document on http://www.salto-youth.net/downloads/91-1376-71/Translated%20version%20of%20LYAP20102015s.pdf , and Otlas profile at http://www.salto-youth.net/tools/otlas-partner-finding/organisation/youth-office-of-municipality-prijepolje.133/ .

Youth Office of Municipality of Prijepolje represents active model of networking of youth with various institutions and organisations which represents youth support.

YOP is completing their aims by organizing seminars, exhibitions, actions, music festivals, conferences in cooperation with domicile and international organizations.

Youth Office of Municipality or Prijepolje has 56 registered volunteers from 15 to 30 years old.
YOP started on April 2nd 2008.

Target group of implementing youth policy and programs is from 15 to 30 years old regarding National strategy for youth of Republic Serbia .

Specific target group could be separated in two ways:

” Youth from high school and ending elementary schools (14 to 21)
” Youth aged from 21 to 30 years old