Youth Department of Kaskinen

Town of Kaskinen is situated in Western Finland, Ostrobothnian province. It is about 360 km. north from Helsinki, capital city of Finland. Nearest cities are Närpiö ( distance 13 km) and Kristiinankaupunki 30 km away. There is 1280 inhabitants in Kaskinen. 70 % of the inhabitants are Finnish speaking and 30 % Swedish speaking. Kaskinen has the westernmost Port of Finland. The majority of products is shipped from Kaskinen to buyers or for further proccessing. Kaskinen has one of the largest fishing harbour of Finland. Youth department of Kaskinen is part of Kaskinen town structure. They aim is to provide Youth and sport services for young people. By to Youth work Act of Finland municipalities have to serve all children and young people from 0 to 29 years old. The youth department maintains the youth house for children and youngsters It is a place where young people can play different games, look videos, listen music and make food. Further tasks to the youth department are , after-school-clubs and –activities and close co-operation with the local secondary school and kindergarten. We would like to motivate young people to use foreign languages and get familiar with other cultures. The young volunteer would be a counsel of his/her culture. S/he would take a part in language discussion clubs , have club meetings with youngsters who want know more and learn more about other cultures. S/he would go around schools presenting about his/her home country and making activities with our young people. Volunteer will be helping, youth worker and youth groups in different projects and activities. S/he would be part of everyday activities at the everyday life of local young people bringing internatioanality in their life. Kaskinen is small town surrounded by countryside. We wish that volunteer have flexibility for living in the small community in the countryside.The volunteer is wished to be motivated to meet new people and work together with young people and children. It would be great help for integration if young person is interested of sports and out door activities. Our youngsters and children shall get familiar with internationality by sharing their daily environment(the youth center, school) and happenings with an international person who actively influences usual days as well as special happenings and mediates his/her culture by daily touch and with the youngsters. We hope that this daily encourages our youngsters to improve their language skills and makes their view going further than just their used home-environment by seeing that other people are interested in and just go to another country because they want it. The youth house is rather small what means a kind of all around-job for the volunteer. The every-day task is to supervise the youngsters who spend their free time here and being there for them. Next to this there are always things in this house, e.g. repairing games or interior, tidying up, checkingthe technical equipment, cooking, shopping, cleaning in- and outside, preparing an activity, working or playing with an afternoon-group, some office-work, preparing the school visits or even language-clubbs, trying new ideas, activities and games out…and so on. The volunteer can put a focus on special activities if there is enough to do in those (this basically depends on his/her own initiative and creativity). If there are two volunteers they will do more in their own focuses and more cultural and information work. If we take 2 volunteers we will try to chose those with a bit different interests to cover a bigger field of activities so that we can reach a wider amount of youngsters with our aims (e.g. we could take one volunteer with interest in theatre/dancing/arts and techniques and one who likes more social themes and organizing/office jobs; but this we will figure out when we have the applications). Volunteer's normal tasks are working with young people in Youth Center and at school. Organizing evening happen