EVS stands for European Voluntary Service. It is part of the European Commission’s youth in action/Erasmus+ youth mobility projects programme. Through this, young people between the ages of 18-30 have the opportunity to experience non-formal learning via helping others abroad.
The European Voluntary Service should not be confused with a job opportunity, an internship, or scholarship of any kind. It is sheer unpaid voluntary work in a foreign country mostly with a duration of 12 months. Every year our project starts in September.
What do you think? Are you interested in living actively in a foreign country? Or learning a new language and culture? Or working in a friendly, heart-warming environment? Or getting to know yourself better? Or wanting to know the liberating feeling of helping those in need? Or increasing your sense of solidarity? Or developing your social skills and enhancing your professional competences?
As a volunteer you will have the opportunity to work in those fields mentioned here and to get acquainted with the famous Hungarian hospitality. If you are a young person with open mind, compassion, social sensitivity and sense of humour or you want to become one having these traits, feel free to contact us about the opportunities or browse among our institutions, volunteering sites below.
Personal support: you should not be worried: your sending organization will arrange your insurance and your receiving organization will appoint you a professional mentor who usually has been an EVS volunteer himself/herself. Your mentor is responsible for providing personal support to you, offering you supervision and guidance, conducting one-to-one meetings on a regular basis with you, reviewing and supporting your learning process, and giving opportunity for you to integrate into the local community. At the end of your 12-month placement your mentor will also help you to make your own YouthPass certificate which, as an informal document that certifies your acquired skills and competences during your placement, can make you stand a bigger chance at getting job opportunities or admission to university or college. As for your learning process, before your departure and during your placement your sending and receiving organizations will conduct a number of seminars, trainings, evaluations and even language courses according to the EVS principles, about intercultural competences, about the culture and history of your receiving country, and on how to cope with culture shock and home-sickness.
Financial support: your insurance, your accommodation, your provisions, your temporary residence permit, and 100% of your travel expenses are all covered and you even get monthly pocket money for your own personal spending. However, you must remember that during your 12-month placement you will not have the opportunity to access higher education or to even take a part-time job.
Rights: your rights and obligations, and those of your sending and receiving organizations are laid down in a formal signed agreement between the three of you. This is to protect you and of course the other two parties involved. This so-called activity or volunteering agreement is absolutely in accordance with the rules laid down in the EVS charter. It mainly states your and your receiving organization’s roles and responsibilities, how many days off, holidays, weekends you are entitled to, how many hours your usual “working day” will consist of, and last but not least the personal, linguistic, and financial supports you get during your placement.
Application process: before you decide which volunteering site suits you, interests you most, you have to get in touch with us (click here). It is for you own sake and to save time for you, as it can be the case that we either have some other applicant already for that site or we do not have a partner organization in your home country as of September, our project start date. With this we must comply with the Erasmus+ rules, meaning that we can get into partnership with sending organizations, i.e. signing a bilateral agreement or contract, so-called Mandate, only before the three given project proposal application deadlines, one in February, one in April-May, and one in October, specified by the European Commission. In order for us to maintain the quality of our projects, we start in September every year, and for that we have to submit our application, along with the mentioned mandates, for our projects to the Commission in February. Therefore it is highly advisable to start networking, contacting and negotiating with the possible partner organizations in early winter. Needless to say, that even though we try to expand our network of connections year by year, we might not be able to receive volunteers from any country. If you do want to do voluntary service in Hungary in one of our institutions, please contact us in late autumn, early winter the year before your intended placement.
Opportunities: we have 15 volunteering sites. 2 in homeless care, 3 in family care, 4 in disabled care, 1 in elderly care, and 5 in youth and child care. You can get detailed information on them by writing us an inquiry email.
- Budapest, Miklós u.: 1 volunteer, hostel and day centre for homeless people.
- Kecskemét: 2 volunteers, day centre and soup kitchen for homeless people, family shelter, meal delivery service for the elderly, street outreach service.
- Debrecen: 1 volunteer, soup kitchen and day centre for families.
- Budapest, Békásmegyer, Kelta u.: 1 volunteer, family shelter, soup kitchen, and day club for the elderly.
- Budapest, Szatmár u.: 1 volunteer, family shelter.
- Fehérgyarmat: 1 volunteer, day care centre for people with disabilities.
- Győr: 1 volunteer, day care centre for people with disabilities.
- Keszthely: 1 volunteer, day care centre for people with disabilities.
- Szolnok: 1 volunteer, day care centre for people with disabilities.
- Budapest, Bem rakpart, HQ: 1 volunteer, nursing home and home care services for the elderly, coordination office for our EVS projects.
- Budapest, Bem rakpart: 1 volunteer, our Youth Group, different youth development activities.
- Erk: 1 volunteer, youth centre for socially and economically disadvantaged children and young adults (mostly with Roma origin).
- Tarnabod: 2 volunteers, kindergarten and primary school for socially and economically disadvantaged children (mostly children with Roma origin).
- Tatabánya: 1 volunteer, playground and youth centre.
- Nagykanizsa: 1 volunteer, family daycare.
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