Introduction
The Saaremaa Youth Work Centre serves as the umbrella organization for all youth centers across Saaremaa, including the Kuressaare Youth Center, Noortejaam. Noortejaam’s mission is to offer a variety of open youth work services, providing young people aged 7–26 with opportunities to engage in meaningful and enjoyable activities during their free time. At Noortejaam, young people can participate in activities such as playing table tennis, billiards, table football, board games, and console games. The center also features a band room and a music recording studio, creating opportunities for musical expression and creativity. Additionally, it provides a space for socializing with peers, working on creative projects, and exploring other initiatives that align with their interests. The center operates on the principles of open youth work, which prioritize voluntary participation and cater to the needs and interests of young people. By encouraging youth-driven ideas and supporting their initiatives, Noortejaam aims to foster active involvement in society and enhance social skills. Noortejaam has a strong track record of hosting volunteers, emphasizing the importance of collaboration and supporting the growth and creativity of young individuals in the community.
Location
Kuressaare is a town on Saaremaa island in Estonia. It is the administrative centre of Saaremaa Parish and the capital of Saare County. Kuressaare is the westernmost town in Estonia. The recorded population on 1 January 2018 was 13,276.
The town is situated on the southern coast of Saaremaa island, facing the Gulf of Riga of the Baltic Sea.
Besides the youth center Noortejaam, there are 6 more youth centers in Saaremaa.
More about the Island: https://visitsaaremaa.ee/en/
Activities
The volunteer will be mostly in Kuressaare, but will have the chance to visit the other centres as well. We expect that volunteer will enrich youth center open area activities with her/his competences, skills and interests. Like carrying out workshops in youth center and occasionally in other youth centers in Saaremaa – cooking, handicraft, health related, recycling workshops or something according to volunteer´s skills, experience, interests. Activities that expand the image of the world for the youth. Also design new activities and opportunities in the youth center, develop the environment for the open youth work, support youth initiative projects and help to carry them out.
We would like to cooperate with the schools in Kuressaare, so the volunteer would have a chance to spend one day a week in a school. It would give more diversity to the volunteer and make wider impact to the community overall.
The daily work of the volunteer is more or less completely up to the volunteer herself/himself, which means that the volunteer is responsible to find her/his own way of implementing herself/himself in the youth centre. This can happen through a big variety of ways, for example:
Proposed activities are:
- Organising different activities and workshops for the youngsters
- Working on open youth work area of youth center (socializing with the youngsters, playing billiard, table tennis, band room, music production etc)
- Leading a workshop, course or event
- Helping with projects
- Presenting her/his own country and culture
- Promoting ESC and other volunteering possibilities
- Communicating in a foreign language with young people, which would help them to understand the importance of learning languages
- Assisting youth workers in everyday activities
- Helps to manage the Youth Centers social media accounts and create content
Benefits of volunteering
- Leisure time activities with team (birthdays, celebrating traditional holidays)
- Experience in Estonian culture and language
- Knowledge about open youth work in Estonia
- Experience in communicating with young people with different background and age groups, communication skills, special needs
- Experience in event planning and time management
- Experience in teamwork
- Improving self-reflection (individual meetings every month and weekly team meetings)
Requirements for the volunteer
- Initiative
- Willing to work in team
- Willing to work with young people
- Open-minded and flexible
- Good at communication and starting conversations
- Self-motivating
- Adaptable
- Self-analysing
Application
To apply fill in the application form in the left column and send it to evsestyes@gmail.com.
NB! We are flexible regarding the project dates which means we can change the service dates to some extent according to the needs of volunteer.
