Short & Long EVS: Culture Shapers

Culture Shapers is a short EVS - Youth Mobility (KA1), organized by SUPER TINERI – ASIRYS Association, in Romania. The mobility will last two months, from 1 July to 31 August, and will involve 10 volunteers from 10 countries. The EVS volunteers will be 18-30 years old, passionate about different topics as dance, photography, film-making, architecture, landscape design, cooking, healthy food, and they will be interested to develop a social entrepreneurial project related with their passion. The volunteers will participate and organize non-formal activities in both, urban area (Tirgu Frumos), and in rural area (the traditional villages nearby). The topics addressed in the project are entrepreneurial learning - entrepreneurship education and rural development & urbanisation. The activities undertaken by volunteers during the European Voluntary Service mobility are diverse and involve the development of many skills and competencies that will help the volunteers to become social entrepreneurs. Some of the activities in which the 10 volunteers will be involved are: artistic events inspired by all the cultures involved, in order to promote non-formal education and European volunteering; creative activities inside the Volunteering Center of our organisation, the re-shape of the House of Culture & of the town using creative ways, and each volunteer will develop a personal project. 

Through the Culture Shapers project, 10 EVS volunteers will achieve personal development, they will gain experience, more self-confidence, while becoming more interested about community development, thus increasing their chances to become successful social entrepreneurs in their field of interest. To ensure the sustainability of the project, the EVS volunteers with the project team, will value the resources of the communities involved in the project by simulating a social enterprise, which will be promoted and valued in other future projects.

Culture Shapers Society is a long term EVS project, that will take place between 1 October 2015 - 1 August 2016 and it will involve 4 volunteers. The Culture Shapers Society aims to promote and develop the volunteering activity through arts/culture, and is focused on cultural entrepreneurship and youth work. The activities will be hosted in Tirgu Frumos, Iaşi and adjacent rural area. 

In cooperation with the House of Culture and local public institutions, the project wish to support the cultural development of the community and of the volunteers, as social entrepreneurs, and will be a follow-up of the short-EVS "Culture Shapers".

The 4 volunteers should be passionate about a topic like photography, film-making, dance, architecture and garden design, cooking, folklore etc. Inside the House of Culture we will develop a volunteering center which will train 120 local volunteers which will organize 200 events. The EVS volunteers will have to work together with them in order to assure the sustainability of the project. So the 4 volunteers  will need to be with sense of initiative, interest about different arts, about culture in general, and ready to implement their ideas and to work with a lot of youth. The project will give to the volunteers the chance to experience creative ideas, to bring their contribution, to manage different type of teams, to work in a challenging environment and to make a positive change through cultural/arts tools. The methods & instruments that the EVS volunteers will use to develop the activities are from the non-formal area: games, workshops, street arts activities, presentations, debates, brainstorming, socio-educational animation, public cafe, street animation, audio-video materials etc. All the activities developed by the volunteers will aim to encourage young people to pursue and develop their artistic talents and in this way, to support their personal development.

The volunteers will have a mandate of 2 months as manager in 4 different departments of our organization:
Human Resources: involved in all things related to the volunteers – recruitment, volunteer management, training, succession planning.
Marketing:creating and developing partnerships, develop and maintaining social media channels and website.
Events: developing social & cultural events inside the Volunteering Center from the House of Culture.
Sustainability: finding sources of funding and developing sustainable activities for the center.

If you are interested to join our project as partner, please send us the mandate and the partnership form. If you want to participate, write us on www.facebook.com/ASIRYS.