ESC: The Machers: long-term volunteering for the Jewish Culture Festival

The Society Jewish Culture Festival presents and promotes contemporary Jewish culture from Israel and the entire Diaspora. By doing so, we aim to eliminate anti-Semitism and to create a friendly and welcoming environment for the growing Jewish community. To achieve these aims, the Society organizes annual Jewish Culture Festival, all year round programs at the Cheder as well as by developing and promoting ideas of voluntary work as a part of the program called The Machers. Thanks to cooperation with European Solidarity Corps we strongly believe we can invite to Kraków young people from all Europe and Israel. Aa part of their voluntary activities, they will create one of the largest cultural events in Poland in the areas of: assisting artists, logistical assistance at the festival office, assistance in the production and implementation of festival events: workshops, meetings, lectures, guided tours, musical events, religious ceremonies, assistance in promotion, distribution of information material, and helping the festival audience. Helping the Festival Association allows the volunteers to acquire real skills in the field of organization, production and promotion of a global event - the Festival hosting more than 40.000 recipients every year. Therefore, a very important requirement of the volunteer team is to take into account the subject of cultural diversity, pluralism of views, values of cultures and traditions of individual communities. We want these values to be present not only during the Festival but also during organizing and implementing the entire project. Our activities will be directed mainly at non-Poles but will also aim to satisfy all young people who live in Kraków, including those who have come from other countries to study or work here. Therefore, in preparing the volunteers for the Festival, we want to include important and sometimes difficult topics – such as training for intercultural competences, difficulties with adaptation to a new community, etc. The Jewish Culture Festival provides a safe environment to promote solidarity, cooperation and mutual support. This type of environment is reflected by the cooperation of volunteers from different cultures, with different social conditions and with different level of education. The main goal of the project is to activate the potential of the volunteers through cooperation with them in every way – we want to improve their skills and competences in the field of personal, educational, social, civic, cultural and professional development through participation in the Festival and the preparatory program, as well as to contribute to the building up of civil society. Our goal is to help build a new network of volunteer contacts, and above all, thanks to learning by doing, to implement new methods of organizing cultural events and awaken in them the initiative to undertake their own projects and activities for their local communities. We want to show them that they also have their own voice which matters and the right to try to achieve their intended goals. In addition, we want to ensure equal social opportunity through the inclusion of people with financial or geographical obstacles, which may constitute a restriction for them. We want to build an open community with equal rights and shared values - we want to ensure equal opportunities by providing development and individual support for each volunteer. We strongly believe that this project will bring measurable results and have a real impact on the volunteers participating in them. Above all, we care about the development of various competences - hard and soft skills, such as language, social, and civic skills, and the ability to organize local cultural events. In addition, we want to help shape civic attitudes and explore the possibilities of active local communities.