GENERAL INFORMATION:
- Organisation: Azienda Servizi di Bolzano
- Location: Bolzano, Italy
- Deadline for application: No deadline
SOME WORDS ABOUT BOLZANO:
Bolzano-Bozen is an autonomous province situated in North Italy with having its borders to Austria and Switzerland. Together with Trento, it makes up the region of Trentino Alto Adige/Südtirol one of the five autonomous regions in Italy. Bolzano happens to be a unique example of cohabitation with hosting Austro-Hungarian origined inhabitants as majority of its population who speak an Austro-Bavarian dialect of German, about a quarter of the province is Italian-speaking and a small minority speaks Ladin as mother tongue, while both Italian and German are the official languages of Bolzano-Bozen. As a result of sheltering a multilingual and multicultural population, Bolzano happens to be one of the most important examples of ‘coexistence atmosphere’ in the territory of Italy. The province in total has more than 500.000 inhabitants and hosts the Free University of Bozen which makes it easier to find free time activities compared to the rest of the smaller Italian cities. Bolzano is also blessed with the luck of being situated among the Alps and the Dolomites which were declared as world heritage by UNESCO in 2009. The town of Bolzano is in easy commute to Trento, where InCo is :-), in about 40 minutes by train and in about 1,5 hours to Innsbruck, Austria.
CONTEXT OF THE ASSB:
The “Azienda Servizi Sociali di Bolzano” (ASSB) is a public institution, which coordinates and manages the social services offered in Bolzano’s territory. Volunteers may be involved in one of the following structures for elderlies:
> Villa Armonia
> Villa Europa and “Casa di riposo Don Bosco” ;
> Villa Serena
> Clinica Santa Maria
> Premstallerhof
> Day center for elderlies in Villa Europa
PROPOSED ACTIVITIES:
Volunteers will collaborate with the staff of nursing homes mainly with recreational and entertainment activities planned for the elderly. In particular volunteers will be involved in the following activities:
- organizing recreational activities for the elderly/handicapped people,
- talking to them,
- reading something,
- participating in some excursions of one or more days,
- making different kind of purchases (e.g. food, medicine for the guests),
- support of the educators in the activities of assistance,
- care and rehabilitation,
- accompanying the elderly with walking difficulties,
- participating in the evaluation meetings
- and planning certain matters with the educators and social workers etc.
Moreover, volunteers will have the opportunity to be involved in parallel activities together with other volunteers hosted in other receiving organizations coordinated by InCo. The topic of the parallel activities will change according to the project. (Making games, organizing events, exhibitions, etc.)
FOOD AND ACCOMONDATION:
You will get free accommodation for the whole duration of your voluntary service. You will live in a single room with shared bathroom, laundry facilities and a fully equipped kitchen with cooking facilities. You will share the apartment with other volunteers, never with the elderly. Indeed, if the room is inside the nursing home “Villa Serena” (close to the city center and the Talvera river), it is at the last floor totally separated from the floors where elderlies are hosted and doing activities.
During working days, you will eat your lunch in the canteen of the elderly home/handicapped centre where you work together with the staff. The other meals and during the weekends (or free days if you decide to stay in Bolzano), you have the possibility to eat in the canteen of the nursing home where you live. In any case you will receive a food allowance to cover the expenses linked to meal for dinner, holidays and weekend.
USEFUL LINKS:
Here you can find the website of Azienda Servizi di Bolzano: http://www.aziendasociale.bz.it/en/default.asp
Here you can find the website of InCo, the coordinating organisation: http://www.incoweb.org/eng
If you would like to know more about the EVS experience, check out the blog of the volunteers: http://www.incoweb.org/eng/Volunteers-say
To participate send us your CV and Motivation letter (marked as “ESC Bolzano”) to advit_team@yahoo.com
For any questions or clarification feel free to contact us