Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata is an NGO, based in Romania, founded in 2012 on the initiative of some specialists in the field of education, art, history, social assistance.
The mission of Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata is to promote volunteering and civic consciousness by developing activities that contribute to increased public awareness of the contribution of volunteers to the local community and to the society in general.
Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata performs the following duties:
– develops activities based on non-formal education aiming to enhance social functioning, integration and cooperation among young people;
– provides counsel, therapy and specialized assistance in order to prevent social marginalization.
A large part of the activities that we carry out are focused around supporting the disadvantaged children and their families to have access to education and involving young people, in particular, and community members in volunteering actions.
The objectives of the Organization are:
– to offer multidisciplinary services for individuals who are in a critical social difficulty;
– to provide support for people in need who are socially excluded;
– to conduct social research and monitor the phenomenon of social exclusion;
– to plan programs of assistance for individuals who are in social crisis;
– to run social integration programs for children who are socially excluded;
– to train professionals in working with underprivileged people;
– to set up and collaborate with day centres and residential care facilities.
Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata also promotes active participation in society and is actively involved in the field of non-formal education by developing and implementing youth projects in order to promote cultural heritage, environment, healthy lifestyle, social inclusion, non-formal learning.
Our organization has as human resources skilled personnel who are well trained and motivated:
– a psychologist who is experienced in working with people in difficulty;
– a social worker who designed and implemented various projects in the social field and who is also qualified in special psycho pedagogy and is working with disabled children;
– a doctor who is also the vice-president of our organization and deals with the safety and protection measures in each project;
– a history teacher who is the president of our organization;
– the work of our organization is also supported by many community volunteers;
– active volunteers who are part of the implementation team of our projects:
– a jurist who has knowledge in project management, time management and conflict management; a volunteer teacher experienced in working with young people, who was coach, mentor, youth leader in our projects;
– teachers from the gymnasium schools in Marasesti, teachers from the Technological Highschool ”Eremia Grigorescu”, and teachers from C.S.E.I (School Center for Inclusive Education) ”Elena Doamna”Focșani.
In 2012, Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata started its work in Marasesti town in order to support a sustainable local development. First, the Organization developed and implemented youth projects in the framework of Youth in Action programme (Youth Initiatives promoting cultural heritage and environment). Then, the Organisation started to develop European projects under the Erasmus+ programme. So far, Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata implemented 2 Youth Exchange projects, “Nature Symphony” – promoting healthy lifestyle through outdoor education activities and “Silence the Violence” – which used sports and theatre arts as a mechanism to educate against violence. As Sending and Hosting organization, Asociatia Voluntariat Pentru Viata promotes EVS among young people and it has already implemented 2 EVS projects in which we hosted 8 volunteers over a period of 6 months and currently it is running another EVS project in which we’ll host 10 volunteers over a period of 9 months for leisure education activities with disadvantaged children and youth.
Asociatia Voluntariat pentru Viata carries out its work in partnership with local and regional schools and local social centers, offering the chance to their target groups to participate in the projects. Our Organization also initiated an ongoing collaboration with the School Center for Inclusive Education ”Elena Doamna” from Focsani, an institution which schools more than 300 students with special educational needs, such as varying impairments (hearing impaired, autism, Down syndrome and other mental impairments) but also children from families with fewer opportunities who are at risk of marginalization and social exclusion. Our Organization wants to change the view on these children and wants to start working directly with children and young people who are at risk of social marginalization because of their disabilities.
Our Organization also carries out local voluntary activities such as: the voluntary actions “Make a gift for Christmas”, “Make a gift for Easter” for the disadvantaged people, in which we involve many volunteers from our community; fund raising for medical interventions for children with health problems coming from families with fewer opportunities.
We also got involved in the Shoe Box campaign addressed to children coming from families with fewer opportunities from Focsani, Panciu and Marasesti. We also initiated a volunteering campaign among the community young people entitled: “Grandchild for a day” with a view to promoting voluntary activities and to integrate the elders from The Care Home for Elderly “A New Chance” in the local community. These are just some examples of our experience in the field of youth, which we consider to be a proof of our ability and willingness to manage this project proposal.
The key persons involved in this project proposal have experience in working with young people, particularly young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. They also attended a Volunteer Management Training and have good knowledge in the management of volunteers.
The project team members have knowledge of English and have the necessary expertise in the management of young people and good abilities in working in a multicultural team.
They also have the necessary skills in crisis management and they have expertise in coordinating, implementing, managing and reporting of EU funded projects.
Our team members take care to prepare the participants for their experience abroad and give them all the support they need in every phase of the project before/during/after their stage.
Contact :voluntariatpentruviata@gmail.com