DOWN TOWN

All summer camps are held under one common theme, though every camp has its own focus within which everyday activities for youngsters are organized. Each day of the camp program has a special topic to be discussed and a related activity to work out the outcome. There is also a creative and interactive presentation of a country-participant every day to introduce general and interesting facts about the country as well as cultural customs and national traditions to schoolchildren. The standard number of days in a shift is 5 plus 1 optional Saturday, and there is a special agenda on the 1st, 3th, 5th camp days (camp introductory and final events, the mid-camp event, the day outside Tallinn). Every camp is thoroughly documented. The samples of the topics to be discussed with youngsters are as follows: “Life hacks”, “Labs and crafts”, “Dream streamers”, “Pop culture remix”, etc. The related activities suitable to support topic discussions and country presentations are as follows: various intellectual and sport games for youngsters, creative team projects like posters and sculptures or board-games, pieces of amateur drama or other types of performances, excursions and workshops, playing the games and music popular in the countries the volunteers represent, teaching their songs or folk dances, etc. There are 10 camps during this summer project which are of different length (5-10 days) in Tallinn and for different ages (10-16 years old). The working language is English. An average number of volunteers working with schoolchildren in one camp is 2-8 (both long-term volunteers for the whole summer and short-term volunteers for 2-3 weeks); they work in pairs with one of the camp groups of 10-12 teens and change the groups every 2-3 days. An average number of camp participants is 40 who are split into four camp groups; the local participants are mainly youngsters from a Russian-speaking minority group of Tallinn. Based on what is described, the work and duties of the volunteer include the following: prepare and facilitate topic discussions and camp activities for smaller teams of youngsters as well as larger all-camp events, support and lead youngsters in their work on team projects; help the youngsters and other volunteers in their performances and country presentations; assist the program leader implementing camp activities and trainings for other volunteers; work on the documenting camp events and support the local staff in their work with an international team of volunteers – organizing folders with working materials, making on-line reports and advert, making analysis, compiling the camp albums and leaflets, taking care of other volunteers, providing feedback, etc. The work can be quite hard, involving long working hours on some days, requiring high commitment and responsibility for the camp program. Sundays are off. In addition, there will be several Saturdays off according to the schedule.