An inevitable part of EVS - saying goodbye.

As I promised before - a post about my thoughts.

Yesterday was definetly a "Goodbye day". We had a meeting with the Regional Minister , who wanted to present us a gift and thank us for the voluntary work we do here (although she could make it than the event was really nice). Almost all the volunteers were there (with the exeption of Rebekka) and it was really nice but it was also the last night for me to see 4 of the volunteers for the last time as their projects had finished and they would be going home in next days ( or for a while at least as I hope to see some of them still sometime in the future).

And in general it is a "Goodbye weekend" as my On-Arrival Penguin group (group of volunteers you come to Austria at similar time period and have on-arrival and mid-term training together) is also having their goodbyes ... a lot of them finishin and also returning to home.

I did Erasmus in 2009-10 so I have the experience of both and I have to say that for me they are not the same experience. I did make a lot of friends during my Erasmus time but with EVS I gained 2 families : my Estonian-Belgian-German-Graz family and my Penguin-Austria family. If Erasmus was mostly about having fun and studing/working than EVS is about learning, taking care of each other and sharing. Thats why I would describe it as a family - as I feel being taken care, being taken without any judgment and I felt safe. And of course we also had a lot of fun :)

I think I was really lucky to have this 2 EVS families and make this connection with this people. I feel special by just being part of this groups and I will never forget them or the times we shared together. Parts of my family still stay here for me so I cannot say that it is all behind me. And parts of my families I will see soon again.

I hope the other volunteers who come after me will also find something so special from this experience and will have this support network around them.

And there is this 2 things I learned from my Belgian friend: " Don´t tell "Goodbye" , tell "See you" and "We are still together: we will only leave each other when we will stop thinking about each other" .

So people we think of will always be right next to us and they will only leave when you stop thinking of them.

So see you soon :)

Women and men in third sector

I was searching today statistics about NGO and women´s % in the third sector and found this paper about situation in Poland 1 year ago. 

I think the charts talk for themselves. 

Figure 1: Third-sector management by gender, 2010–2011

Figure 2: Third-sector employment by gender, 2010–2011

More information HERE

Frauen-Flashmob gegen "Po-Grapschen" 26th november 2012

Another demonstration we took part in :)

I think I have never participated in so many public demonstrations ..or even heard so many to take place. This is definetly not common in Estonia and is somethin people just don´t do- not protesting is part of estonian culture as protesting is for french for people.

This demonstration was against sexual harrasment as there was a court case in Austria when a woman accused a man in sexual harrasment ( man touched her ass at a public place without her consent) and this was not announcsed as a sexual harrasment .

Protest got a lot of public attentions and pictures were up in Kleine Zeitung (newspaper) and on Austrian news also . Here are also some pictures .

Article of the insident in German : LINK
Article about the protest  in German: LINK
TV reports : LINK1 and LINK2
Photos at Kleine Zeitung : LINK

Meeting local organisations in Graz, Austria

Last 2 months have been really rich in this field as I have had in total 5 different meetings/events and loved everyone of the. I will give a short overview where I have been and what I have been up to :)

1. Wiki Grünanger Opening Festival 19.10

Definetly one of my favourite events in that month. This made me alive. Chaos , young people , communicating. Oh, that is living I tell you ...
I was there as a volunteer, helping Marina (youth worker there). So I was responsible to set things up and most of the times were making different coctails for youth and speaking with them .. in GERMAN.
"Sehr toll" (Very cool/fun) I would say about that :).Weather was perfect, I loved working together with Marina and youngsters were also very open to speak to me and ignore my bad German.

More information about Wiki Grünanger : http://www.wiki.at/wiki_494_Youth%20Point%20%22%20Jugendtreff%20Gr%C3%BCnanger%22

2. Meeting with Graz Youth Centers 25.10

This is something that happens just once in month and we really didn´t know what to expect so we just went there and see from the spot how it will go. I was so happy that we at least new the staff of the Girls Center and Wiki Grünanger we knew Marina. So there were about 35 people from youth field there. Everybody did their introduction (others in German and we in English). One participant was also from City Graz Department of Open Children and Youth Work. I loved the atmosphere there . Reminded me a lot of Estonian Youth workers meetings and suddenly I missed that feeling a lot. Meeting people from the same field and knowing these people already, talking with them and just having some laughs. Oeh , jes - I do miss doing practical Youth Work quite quite much. I cannot be all that I am when I cant work as a youth worker.

3. International evening in Girls Center Mafalda "Jam" 8.11

Me and Alina went there to cook international food with the girls and also just talk with the staff and youngsters and get to know them. For my surprise most of the girls spoke English. Many of them are not originally from Austria, but all of them could speak German. Alina was fortunate enough to find some girls who spoke Romanian - no estonian speakers for me unfortunatly :) The evening was really nice- food came out good and also girls where curious and openminded. So fun times :)

Moorapallid (Estonian)

Meat-Vegetable Salat (Romania)

 More information about Girls Center "Jam" : http://www.mafalda.at/jam/

4. Participating in LifeLong Learning information seminar 19.11

We went to a information seminar where they introduced LifeLong Learning programm and other possibilities- we were mostly interested in Grundvig learning partnership as we want to develop a project in that area. I have to say it was quite a challenge as it was in German and not with a easy vocabulary , so I have to admit I understood only 20 % of it. Fortunatly one part of it was also individual councelling and there we could speak English and communivate with the national agency coordinators directly.

More information about the Program: http://eacea.ec.europa.eu/llp/about_llp/about_llp_en.php

5. Visiting Womens Healt Center "Frauengesuntheitszentrum" 20.11

We met Mag.^a Veronika Graber , whose topics in center are Girls Healt in Styria and eating disorders, body norms and beauty ideals. We did a short presentation of our activities and EVS and she intriduced her work and the center. We also discussed future cooperation possibilities.

More information about them : http://www.fgz.co.at

Platform 25 - protest on 6th October in Graz, Austria

WoMentor team participated in local communities protest on 6th of October in Graz , Austria.

Platform 25 ?


The platform 25 is an informal grouping of many organizations in the Styrian cultural, social, educational and health sectors, and thousands of individuals.
Founded the platform 25 was in February 2011. Response to the announced cuts in the Styrian provincial budget

Why? 

The announced cuts will "hit" most painfully the Non- Profit Organisations in the area of Styria , who rely on their funding mostly on projects and national funding - youth centers, organisations working with women, children, unemployed people and migrants . These are organisations that don´t make profit and are mostly active in educational, social, cultural and health fields supporting those with fewer opportunities - meaning budget for their activities will be cut almost 25 %. Platform 25 trys to fight against the govenrments plan to cut the budget from non-profit.

More information on their website : http://www.plattform25.at (German)

You can also find more information form their Facebook!

Time for a Change! 

Cut from the PROFIT not from NON-Profit

Preparations for the protest!

Three people trying to make a difference

Signing the petition!

European Awareness- what it means for a EVS ?

Yesterday I had again my monthly Evaluation. We talked about a lot of topics and I will write here some of the thoughts.

One of the most interesting topics we touched was being a European citizen and having European Awareness. I´ll start by writing about how did we come to this topic.

It all started with just one question: " How do I see the next 4 years for myself? "

I had been thinking of that lately. I guess it is the question for every EVS volunteer - "What will be next? ".
Estonia is a small country with just 1,29 million people and 45,227 km(2). From the list below you can see some of the countries that are bigger or smaller in size comparing to Estonia .. and then think of their population.

24) Lithuania: 25,174 square miles (65,200 sq km)

25) Latvia: 24,937 square miles (64,589 sq km)

26) Croatia: 21,831 square miles (56,542 sq km)

27) Bosnia and Herzegovina:19,741 square miles (51,129 sq km)

28) Slovakia:18,859 square miles (48,845 sq km)

29) Estonia: 17,462 square miles (45,226 sq km)

30) Denmark: 16,638 square miles (43,094 sq km)

31) Netherlands: 16,033 square miles (41,526 sq km)

32) Switzerland: 15,942 square miles (41,290 sq km)

33) Moldova: 13,067 square miles (33,843 sq km)

34) Belgium: 11,780 square miles (30,510 sq km)

What I want to say is that from inside it looked so much more bigger than now from outside. The cities felt bigger, the systems felt more right, the way of living felt like "the way everyone else does it" .   After travelling so much and living abroad I just see in a sense how much more limited things are for me when I am born in a small country. Jes, small is not always bad and even not in this case. I love Estonia. 

But actually "the way everyone else does it " is more like " the way estonians do it " . Being abroud and meetin all these people from other countries have made me feel other possibilities to live, other options, other mentalities that I didn´t know existed before. For example, the way austrians live is so much less stressful than estonians - ( of course , they also have a lot of holidays to rest and Sundays most people don´t work). Or how the "hot-blooded" italian or spanish people are so heartwarming and open from the first meetin and don´t need so much time to dare to be totally themselves from the first moment. 

Or what led me to write this entry ... the European dimension- or like seeing myself work in a European Federation. Maybe for a while full time, maybe split the time with Estonia, maybe once in a while. 

But the "maybe" in my thoughts is what surprised me as it has been "no" for most of the times. 

Afraid to making friends here knowing I will leave, being afraid that I will lose those who I left behind because I am not there. Most of these fears have been unfounded. I miss some things - some good times and some bad times but I can be that also for the people here. 

And my family and friends will not lose - they will just get a more happier me, maybe just abit different one. My family and friends won´t maybe see me that often but when they do - the appriciation and quality of the time will be so much higher : ) Being here has made me relalise : it is not about the  quantity ( how many times we meet) but quality (what we make of the one time we do meet ).  

June-September 2012 : Projects

We are always busy writing project but during this period we were extra busy. Also it helped that we had addition to our team : 1 august arrived a new volunteer Alina Vlasa from Romania who is staying until the end of November.

So I will give a short overview of things we applied and did :

1.       Project 2014- EP for Young Women – Youth in Action 1.3 (Astrid)

2014- EP for Young Women is a democracy project with main focus on raising awareness and sharing information about European Parliament elections in 2014 and gender issues among young women. Lead applicant organisation is European Federation of Mentoring for Girls and Women (WoMentor). NGO Öökull (Estonia) will host an International meeting where there will be sent participants from Romania, Austria, Greece and Latvia (Partners and project activities national implementers).  Duration of the project is 18 months. Project will involve actively over 500 young people. Project activities create an open environment for discussion and dialogue between young women and policy makers. As a project result, young women participating in this project will present a list of claims to national parties and politicians about their needs and wishes for European Parliament candidates- so that the list could be considered in developing the election platforms for European Parliament 2014. Results will be also introduced at a meeting with European Youth Forum. Activities encourage young people to recognize their role as European citizens and participate in policy making discussions and go voting to express their opinion.  Variety of methods for participation is offered- workshops, focus groups, discussions in Social media, video interviews, leading activities, filling in questionnaires.

2.       Project YES-Young Entrepreneurs Start – Youth in Action 4.4 (Astrid)

Develop a mentoring European Handbook and Training for Estonia, Austria, Romania, Greece and Latvia. Train 25 mentors/staff members  in the field of mentoring and sustainable entrepreneurship possibilities in youth work and implementing mentoring cycles in their organisations to support young girls and women in sustainable entrepreneurship. Test the developed Handbook and Training at national level. All the administrative issues will be organised by national staff members and expert advice and material will be provided by WoMentor network. All phases of projects will be evaluated internationally and internally. There will be 1 international meeting for sharing experience and good practise; train the mentors and adapt the European Guidelines and Training. Furthermore, there will be 6 national meetings between mentors and mentees to monitor mentoring process, reflect on it and evaluate its effectiveness.  Existence of European Handbook and Training for implementing sustainable entrepreneurship mentoring  programs in organisations working with youth in Estonia, Latvia, Romania, Greece and Austria. Each participating country will have 5 staff members/mentors, who are experienced and skilled and capable to implement a mentoring programs to promote girl’s participation in entrepreneurial activities and sustainable entrepreneurship in general  in their  countries. Raised awareness of gender equality and sustainable entrepreneurship in youth work.  Continuation of similar mentoring relationships in organisations that participated in the project and start of them in other youth organisations.

3.       Social Entrepreneurship Award for We:Mentor (Astrid, Alina)

We nominated Gerlinde Hacker, Managing Director of Projektbüro für innovative Sozialpolitik (Projectoffice for Innovative Social Policy acronym “Projectoffice”) with the project of “We:Mentor” for the Social Entrepreneurship award.

 More information : http://europa.eu/ey2012/ey2012main.jsp?catId=1026&langId=en

4.       Life Story Award for Gerlinde Hacker (Astrid)

I nominated Gerlinde Hacker also for Life Challange Award. You can see and read her story here :

Life Story of Gerlinde Hacker

5.       Article for Youth Forum (Alina)

We were invited you to contribute with an article to the development of a “Guidebook for mentoring young women in Europe” by European Youth Forum (www.youthforum.org). WoMentor sent the article „Mentoring Programmes with a Special Focus on Mentoring for Girls and Young Women – WoMentor approach” and if it is approved it will be published in the Guidebook mentioned above.

6.       Gender Equality Through EVS (Alina)

The project is an initiative of WoMentor  in cooperation with 4 sending partners from Germany, Spain, Estonia and Ukraine.

The partnership is based on common interest  for the themes  focused on Gender Equality , aiming to share good practice , create tools for information and to raise the level of autonomy and the chances of employment of young girls , trying to motivate them to help their self esteem grow and also to  be active citizens in their communities.

The project will give to three young volunteers the opportunity to work in Graz, Austria for twelve months: from January, 1st 2013 to June, 30th 2014.

Volunteering through our EVS project will provide a real-life international learning experience, encouraging social integration, increasing employability and offering opportunities to gain knowledge at a professional level. Among many benefits, the partner organizations and the local communities are strengthened by the experience of European partnerships who exchange cultural knowledge and good practice, increasing awareness and understanding of the Gender Equality issue

7.       International Management and Mentoring Course (Astrid)

WoMentor has developed a curriculum for pilot project to be implemented for a 3 month Training Course of International Management and Mentoring.

Purpose and methods: Participants to gain theoretical knowledge and practical skills in International NPO Management and Mentoring. This course will provide an introduction to concepts and skills needed to effectively manage projects and mentoring programs in international NPO-s. 

Through simulations, case studies, sharing experience, discussion and practical work, the course will explore several organisational management challenges facing international NPOs.  The focus of our training courses is on gaining a thorough understanding of key concepts of International NPO management and mentoring, sharpening practical skills and developing strategies that participants can immediately use in their work. We address real-life problems in a participatory and interactive learning environment to help participants enhance their international management capacity. 

Target Group: 8 - 12 participants in one module

NPO-s working or wanting to work at international level

NPO-s with international team members

International project and program writers and managers

International mentors

Study language: English (Business English)

Venue: Graz, Austria

Course duration:  12 weeks (3 months)

8.       Grant application to Land Steiermark, Austria (Astrid, Gerlinde)

Asking for operating support for 2013

9.       Grant application to Stadt Graz, Austria ( Astrid, Gerlinde)

Asking for operating support for 2013

So we have really done quite a lot. In between I also do the communication with members, research (at the moment working on a article about quotas). Writing Grant applications to Land Steiermark and Stad Graz , which we did in GERMAN( talk about challanges ...). Finishing We:Mentor project report etc. 
I also had my Mid-Term Training in August!

Summarizing June-September: General Assembly 23rd June

Summer was a really busy time and I hope I will get back on track with writing to this blog.
So I will give you an overview of highlights of this period:

1. General Assembly of WoMentor in Athens, Greece
This was something we were preparing for months. It took place on 23rd of June in Athens, Greece (hosted by Greek partner EDEM).
Agenda looked like this:

Topics  9:00 – 11:00

„  Presentation of WoMentor ´s activities for the last 4 years: Gerlinde Hacker

„  WoMentor in Social Media: Astrid Mats,

„  Mentoring in Greece: new term but ... already in the Market: Betty Rouni

„  Mentoring as a provision for Latvia rural women entrepreneurship: Baiba Rivza

„  New Members

„  Report of the auditor - Ruth Seipel, Brigitte Probst - Rädler

„  Release the Board from Responsibility

Coffee break  11:00 – 11:30

Topics  11:30 – 13:30

„  Presentation of the new Board Members

„  Proposed activities for the future

„  Election of the new board for the next 4 years

„  Membership fee and rights of members

Lunch  13:30 – 14:30

Topics  14:30 – 16:30

„  Workshops for future cooperation

General assembly itself was really nice and interesting. Instead of a 7 member Board there is now 5 members and Federation also exepted 2 new members (one from Austria and one from Latvia). After General Assembly I had some holidays so I could rest a little. 

Evaluating Evaluation

So this is an oblicatory part of EVS. Doing Evaluation.
In WoMentor  this is even more stressed as organisations main aim is gender equality through mentoring and people here are really skilled in mentoring and evaluating than I have very intensified evaluation every month.

First Evaluation day

I fill in online Aims and Goals document ( in dropbox) and commenting to each goal or aim about my progress , changes and thoughts - I can also add if I have made new goals or aims.

Then I fill in also every month my personal EVS report that I need to fill in at the end of the project anyway.

Third document is about 8 key competences (for Youthpass). In dropbox we have a document with explanations of these key competences and also supporting questions I answer every month.

+ I also reflect to my EVS blog

Filling in these documents take usually the whole day.

Second Evaluation Day

I meet with my mentor and we discuss all the documents and I give also some additional comments. These talks end always usually with a surprising discovery for me. Sometimes it seems that she just knows exactly what questions to ask or to what direct my attention.

From the last time I could really understand how much we concentrate on the negative things that has happened I don´t mention people who support me or things I like and love. So trying to read what I have written as a stranger I could see how negative all might seem but it is actually really not.

I have a support system who helps me with overcome the obstacles. I have met people , who has helped me with small things but non the less - they have helped me.
And I love the activities I have to do and I love my program. But you cannot really read it from what I have written.

For example, I was a lot writing about my bicycle accident and the insurence etc ... and totally forgetting the fact that I actually GOT a bicycle and I was using it in a big city. Not so easy for a country girl but I really did it and getting back on the saddle this weekend. So I can be proud of myself.

And this is one thing I want to change - to try to talk in a more positive way ... quite hard for and Estonian I have to admit :)

Wiki Jugendtreff Am Grünanger

On 22nd of May I visited a local Youth Center. A youth worker there, Marina, did her EVS in Estonia and we met by accident in the YouthPass meeting at Spektral.

There was a Beach Party just for girls. Youngsters did all the decorations, food and coctails by themselves. Event was from 12:00- 18:00.

I enjoyed it quite much as I have been always an active youth worker and now being last few monts mostly in the office has been a different experience for me. I like to work and do activities with young people.
I helped them do decorations and organised few games. Mostly I was just participating in their activities and tried to talk to them and get to know them and the youth center.

Sometimes I had some problems due to the language problem but Marina helped me to translate when possiblible. This was a very nice way to see how is  youth work with young girls done and just talk to them and do things together with local community.

Definetly hope to do more activities with them

Youth in Action 1.3 Democracy project

So my third project finished. Youth in Action programm sub-action 1.3 Democracy project.

I have to say that I liked to write to the Enrepreneurship Call more than to this as questions for YiA are to wide for me and they have mostly limits for 2000 characters. So you cannot actually write a very detailed programm or justification. What is more, questions are a bit "vague" for me as not accompanied with more specific questions. For example : European Added Value.
Also, now I am getting a better sense of my working styles and learning about my strenghts and weaknesses as a projectwriter.
My observations so far :

• I need timeline - certain milestones/activities or results we want to achieve to build a concept around it. Gerlinde seems to be different. She likes to have a borad concept and then go into detail. Well , of course , that is necessary- you have a need and then in detail you go to the activities but I guess what I try to say is I have to know what will be the working method and tool (mentoring cycle, meeting) and results ( more women aware of EP elections etc). 
• At the start of the projectwriting process I tend to have hard time to focus but I am very focused and efficient near the deadline. 
• I like concept writing much better than budget writing

I can really feel that I am learning in this area and it will be a very important skill for me in the future.

In the end I think that we have a very good idea and activities and fingers grossed !

Short summary about the project:

2014- EP for Young Women is a democracy project with main focus on raising awareness and sharing information about European Parliament elections in 2014 and gender issues among young women. Lead applicant organisation is European Federation of Mentoring for Girls and Women (WoMentor). NGO Öökull (Estonia) will host an International meeting where there will be sent participants from Romania, Austria, Greece and Latvia (Partners and project activities national implementers).  Duration of the project is 18 months. Project will involve actively over 500 young people. Project activities create an open environment for discussion and dialogue between young women and policy makers. As a project result, young women participating in this project will present a list of claims to national parties and politicians about their needs and wishes for European Parliament candidates- so that the list could be considered in developing the election platforms for European Parliament 2014. Results will be also introduced at a meeting with European Youth Forum. Activities encourage young people to recognize their role as European citizens and participate in policy making discussions and go voting to express their opinion.  Variety of methods for participation is offered- workshops, focus groups, discussions in Social media, video interviews, leading activities, filling in questionnaires. 

More about AXA

As now having experience with AXA I can destify that the system it uses is really not volunteer- friendly or easy to understand. This has been the case for me.

As I got agreement from my doctor that they will send the bills themselves to the insurance than this was not acceptable. Demand is that I HAVE TO pay them myself , and then send all the originals to France and cannot be even sure if they will exept my claim or not. What is more, it is actually really difficult to understand what kind of documents they need. They are very nice in answering emails but it still takes few days and calling there is quite expencive ... and so the days go ...

So at the moment , I have stopped my theraphy until I get a "green light " from France.

I have copied the email- exchange so maybe you find some useful information here:

The insurance will cover doctor’s consultations provided they are medically necessary, however, you must pay your bills first and then request reimbursement afterwards by sending all of your original documents to us by post as we do not pay directly to the doctors. Perhaps this is what the doctor was told and there was a misunderstanding?


---

 I was first to the emergency and they did copyies of incurence papers and everything was fine and they have not contacted us with a problem. 

But after my situation got worse and I had a serious problem with walking I went to a specialist and he discribed me a support for my leg and physiotherapy as he said that I need to strenghten the muscels around my knees or I might not be able to walk without support in the future. 

I do not have that kind of money to pay for the theraphy here in Austria. Does this also means that I cannot ask for any reimbursments for the leg support or the medicine ?

---

Your consultations will be covered provided they were medically necessary and not ‘alternative medicine’ consultations. On the EVS policy you are covered for 5 sessions of physiotherapy provided you have a medical prescription. If you require more than 5 sessions you must contact us before you continue the treatment with a medical report explaining why you need such treatment, a treatment proposal indicating the number of required sessions and a cost estimate of the treatment. You can scan these documents and send them to us by email and then our medical team will decide how you will be covered.

Medical appliances such as supports etc are not covered by the EVS policy, except in the event of an accident that occurred during your project.

If you cannot pay these bills yourself, is there any possibility that your organisation or a family can advance the money on your behalf? We cannot confirm which of your treatments will be covered until we receive the official documents concerning your case.

---

You wrote that "  Medical appliances such as supports etc are not covered by the EVS policy, except in the event of an accident that occurred during your project. " Do I understand then correctly that having a bicycle accident during my project is the expeption you speak about and I should just provide a proof ( for example visit to the hospital after the accident) and receipy from doctor for the medicine and statement that I need these supports ?

Can these documents be in German ?

---

Yes, usually if you need these supports due to your accident they will be covered according to the limits of your contract and the documents you mentioned are exactly the documents we will need. There is no problem that these documents are in German. Please ensure that you send the original documents and all prescriptions, medical reports, test results etc along with your claim form and bank details.

We will keep you informed about the processing of your reimbursement request through your participant page on www.msh-intl.com/global. Please click on ‘my reimbursement statements’ to see your reimbursements. If you see ‘0’ in ‘total amount‘, then documents or information may be missing or incorrect, so you must click on the magnifying glass or red envelope to read the message.

---

I hope I am doing everything right with the claims and documents. I will send you all the copies I have so please let me know if there is something missing. 

To conclude attached documents :

I had a bicycle accident on 5th of May. I stayed at home then until 7th of May when I went to work ( this was longest distance I had to walk after the accident ) and half way to work I could not properly walk any more and very slowly finally reached my workplace. 

My workplace mentor then took me to the hospital - as I could not walk, we had to take the taxi ( attached invoices )

Proof of visit also attached. There I got röngen and consulation that I have to see a specialist. 

My first visit to the specialist was on 23rd of May ( re-visits on 25th and 29th) - proof and activities and costs attached. 

Doctor reffered me to have a 10 time theraphy for my knee- proof attached (in german). 

My question now is that will the incurence cover these costs and can I do my theraphy- will the incurence pay for that ? ( 10 times). Also, my glasses where broken in the accident. Will insurence reimburse new ones ?

---

Firstly in order to claim for reimbursement you must pay all of your bills first and send the original documents to us by post. Please note that transport costs, unless in certain circumstances by ambulance, are not covered by your plan.

5 sessions of physiotherapy are covered by your EVS plan provided the treatment takes place during your period of insurance. For more than 5 sessions you will need to send us a pre-agreement request before you undergo the treatment. This is a cost estimate for the 10 sessions that you need along with the medical prescription from your doctor. Our medical team will then decide whether or not this will be covered. This can be scanned and sent by email.

Vision care expenses are covered up to a total limit of €300 provided they are medically necessary. Either one pair of glasses and one visit to the optometrist or contact lenses and one visit to the optometrist are covered by your plan provided you are still insured at the time of service and provided the eye test result shows it is medically necessary.

You must have a medical prescription indicating the dioptres of your eyes and our medical team will assess your claim based on the medical necessity of the result of your eye test.

If you wish to have your eye test first and then send us the result we can tell you before you make your purchase whether or not they will be covered. This result can be sent by email if you have the facility to scan.

So this is where I am with it so far ...

On-Arrival-Training 8-11 May 2012 - Basic

The Training and Evaluation Cycle for EVS volunteers consists of two sessions:

• On-arrival training and
• Mid-term evaluation meeting.

On-arrival training sessions are organised for all EVS volunteers, Mid-term meetings for those in projects with a service period of 6 months or longer.

In Programme countries, the Training and Evaluation Cycle is implemented by National Agencies.

The goals of the OAT were: 

 To promote better understanding of YiA and particularly EVS program, its goals and 

philosophy, role of each actor, rights and responsibilities of EVS actors and technical 

details.

 To prepare the future volunteers to effectively handle challenges and integrate in the 

new community, new country and culture and give chance for learning how to present 

own culture

 To assist volunteers in planning their EVS project and support them view and plan their 

EVS as a learning process - clarify personal, professional and cultural expectations and 

their motivation in international volunteerism

 To prepare the volunteers to experience intercultural learning and skills on how to cope 

with crisis and problem solving

 To provide chance for the volunteers to learn more about the host culture.

The topics covered included: 

 Concept of volunteering Info on Youth in Action program 

 European Voluntary Service, Goals and philosophy 

 EVS project circle 

 Rights and responsibilities of actors in EVS 

 Technical and practical aspects of EVS 

 Identify motivation and expectations on own voluntary service and plan personal 

project 

 Intercultural awareness and learning 

 Crisis management and problem solving

We where in total 12 participants: 1 Estonia, 2 Belgium, 3 France, 1 Turkey, 1 Hungary, 1 Slovakkia, 2 Germany and 1 Catalonia. 

Bicycle and AXA

So my host organisation bought me a bicycle to use and I have had it for 2 weeks. Just a week ago I was coming from a friends place and had my first bicycle accident.
Not an learning experience you would like to actually have.
What happened is that I was driving in between tramline and then relised I have to go to another line on my right and just foolishly turned and of course got stuck in the tramline and flew off from the bicycle. Landed on my right side and hurt my right knee and shoulder quite badly. I was able to calm myself down and slowly go back home. Next morning (Sunday) I realised I need to go to the doctor and so went the emergency on Monday morning first thing. My mentor came with me.
As we arrived we had to go in line and the lady there said we would have to wait about 2-3 hours. Fortunatly, it took just one hour. To have a röntgen from my knee and shoulder. I also got 2 teetanus shots :)
Doctor said that nothing was broken and so  could go home  and just need to take it easy.
Every volunteer also has the AXA incurence , but the way it mostly works is that you pay in advance and get the money back later. For me this seems quite difficult as even normal check.up is about 52 euros - half of my pocket money. Of course , you can also always come to an agreement with the Host organisation that they would pay first and get the reimbursment. So they also told that we would have to pay first but then my mentor found somebody else to talk to about this and they copied all the documents and so we didn´t have to pay in advance.
So I cannot do any kind of sports for about 1 month- no greek dance or yoga or bicycling or long walks :(

So my advice to you! Be EXTRA careful with the bike! :)

On Tuesday I already went to On-Arrival-Training to Vienna! :)

Entrepreneurship Education Call

First of all, I am now really proud that I know how to write and pronaunciate the word "entrepreneurship" as I did it so often during the past 2 weeks of projectwriting.

Shortly about the Call :

This is the biggest Call I have ever done in the sense of its high level ( it wanted very specific details for the content and budget and extra documents). I was in charge of the content and in the end I am really proud of it as I think it tourned out well.

As there was not so much time to write it I sometimes felt like giving up and not making the effort but my work mentor never spoke of giving up and now I am so happy that She didn´t. It was a great learning experience for me about myself, my workstyle, about projectwriting in general and about cooperation with other Partners.

The inter-cultural part of the project was very useful as I got a real sense what would it feel to work with people, who are from different culture, towards a common goal but in a stressful environment. It thought me patience and realization that to work on international level it takes a lot of time discussing with the partners about do we understand each other and understanding what are the needs of others. It is very hard to guess them , so you need to listen what the Partner is telling you. This is making of good Partnership.

Short Summary of the project :

Develop a mentoring European Handbook and Training for Estonia, Austria, Greece and Latvia. Train 12

trainers in the field of mentoring and sustainable entrepreneurship. Test the developed Handbook and Training at

national level. Train 192 higher education institute educators to become mentors for 1152 female students to

develop entrepreneurial mindset with the focus of gender –sensitivity and sustainable entrepreneurship.

Trainers will help mentors to establish and conduct in total 1152 mentoring relationships during 2 Mentoring

Cycles in 3 years. All the administrative issues will be organised by national staff members and expert advice

and material will be provided by WoMentor network. All phases of projects will be evaluated internationally and

internally. There will be 4 international meetings for sharing experience and good practise and evaluate the

progress of the project. Furthermore, there will be 8 national meetings between trainers and mentors to

monitor mentoring process, reflect on it and evaluate its effectiveness.  

So my SECOND project in EVS (as the first one was to UN Women for a Grant) !

The Balance of Mind and Body

One thing that we have also discussed a lot with my work and personal mentor is that my work is mostly behind the computer- doing research, writing proposals etc. This means I am sitting most of the day in a chair. So we found that it is also very important to still have a balance between Body and Mind. Philosophy in WoMentor is that both are important.

So we disided to take few steps to gain the balance. As most of the volunteers know - there is no funds for that. You do not get money for entering a sport- course so we have to be creative.

At the moment I am doing a Yoga course ( for free as the trainer says he cannot to it in English and so I can be a guest)
I am also doing a Greek Dance course where I was invited as my work- mentors friend ( this is also free for me)
And with my work and personal mentor we do time to time tennis and table tennis by using public places and borrowed equipment.

After now writing a proposal for Entreprenurship Education Call we also did a day in Austrian Welness Spa.
We had attended a Woman´s Day Party before from where we got 2 free entries for one day.

So the hospitaity of Austrian people and the encouragment of my mentors have helped me to make sure I do not forget my body while sharpening my mind!

And I really feel it is something that I look forward every week :)

Picture of me at table tennis!- my second time

LOGO, YouthPass and other EVS volunteers

So yesterday me and Gerlinde took part in two events connected to EVS.

First of them was : Einfach Weg! INFOmesse zu Auslandsaufenthalten


This was organized by LOGO Jugendmanagement (http://www.logo.at/jugendinfo/auslandsmessse )

It was mainly focused on introducing the possibilities for going abroad to young people. There I learned that in Graz there are quite many EVS volunteers and they kepp in touch with each other via phone and email and they meet often. I also met my first EVS there - Christian from Romania.

The second event was :  International YouthPass Spektral


There we talked about YouthPass and I also met an  ex- volunteer Marina who did her EVS in Estonia. It was very interesting to meet her and we agreed to go for a coffee on Friday. I am exited to hear about her EVS and what she has been doing later on.

Yesterday evening I was added also to mail listings and could communicate with other EVS. That was really important to me as I do not know any young people here in Graz with whom I could spend time and for example visit Events. 


I am meeting the EVS group today for Dinner. The dinner there is part of Volkskuxe - once a week volunteers gather to cook vegan food .Usually it is held in Spektral, but this week there is an event in the evening it the dinner is moved to this place - Fahrrad Kuche :) (Bike kitchen)


I was asked to bring my smile and I will definetly do that :)