📝 Detailed information
🏢 About the local organisation
International Service is a UK-based international development charity established in 1953. We are a small charity with 8 core staff. We work with volunteers, partner organisations, and communities across the world to generate positive change, such as promoting positive attitudes towards people with disabilities, and working with people in poverty to earn a decent living. As an organisation we are accredited as a Living Wage employer, a Mindful Employer, and a Disability Confident Employer. We believe in lasting change, local solutions, human rights and putting people at the heart of everything we do.
We deliver development projects in Burkina Faso, Ghana, Malawi, Rwanda and Palestine and over our history have worked all over Asia, Africa, the Americas and Europe. Our work has a special focus on improving the lives of women and people with disabilities, as they are disproportionately at risk of disadvantage and marginalisation.
Our projects are developed in close collaboration with local partners, responding to the challenges and priorities identified by community members. We have seen that volunteers, both local and international, can contribute enormously to exciting new areas of work outside of a local partner’s core activities and are uniquely positioned to strengthen projects by engaging with community members and catalysing new ways of thinking.
We are now committed to taking part in the European Solidarity Corps to create opportunities for young people in the European neighbourhood, especially those with fewer opportunities, to take part in life-changing volunteering placements and make a positive difference in their host and home communities. We are already accredited as a sending organisation with one active project in delivery and a number more about to commence.
💼 What the programme involves
1 North Macedonian & 1 Serbian volunteer will spend 12 months supporting the planning and delivery of a ‘Safe Spaces’ project in York. The project aims to create a network of businesses, public institutions and community hubs that agree to be ‘Safe Spaces’ for vulnerable people who may find they need somewhere to go to seek support. Volunteers will also work on communications activities. Finally, they would work alongside an LGBTI community group to deliver events and activities.
1 North Macedonian & 1 Serbian volunteer will spend 12 months working on several strands of a ‘Community Voices’ project in York, as part of the Human Rights City strategy. Primarily based in the field, volunteers will connect with hard-to-reach communities and individuals to collect qualitative data concerning rights gaps in the city, as well as engaging them in civic consultation. They will also deliver human rights workshops to children and young people.
🏠 Accommodation on site
All costs will be covered by International Services (accommodation, food, utilities, travel, visa).
🎒 Leisure activities
Induction, on-arrival training, midterm, pre-departure and debrief trainings will be organizing.
⚠️ Requirements
The Participant profil: Looking for volunteers who have experience in working with LGBTI+ rights and/or have had experience in volunteering with Skopje Pride and the organizations who work on LGBTI+ rights. Participants must not have participated in any other EVS/ESC project prior to this due to the 12 month placement.
Deadline: Application deadline: 20/06/2021
ℹ️ Additional information
Participants are entitled to receive a Youthpass certificate from the organiser, for recognition of their competence development during the activity. Read more about Youthpass:https://www.youthpass.eu/en/
This organisation holds a European Solidarity Corps Quality Label. The Quality Label certifies that the organisation is able to run projects in compliance with the principles and objectives of the European Solidarity Corps.